


Rogue Traderneers

by LoveCervere



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:27:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 79,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25832758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveCervere/pseuds/LoveCervere
Summary: A love letter to my friend's Dark Heresy campaign.





	1. Chapter 1

_It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries The Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind by the will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that he may never truly die._

_Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in his name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever vigilant Inquisition and the Tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants - and worse._

_To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods._

  
  
  
  


# I.

Sight is a rather limiting form of sense for humans. Limited to only a 210 degree forward cone, and a mere 0.0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum, it seemed as though most of the dark galaxy is simply not meant to be seen by mortal eyes, let alone understood. This was why Tech-priest Ladon 47490-5 relied on a pair of heavily augmented cybernetic implants bolted to the sockets in his cranium. With photo-visor lenses, a connected augur-array, and a built in pict-recorder, Ladon had compiled field reports of a twenty to thirty percent advantage over his more wholly organic companions. With various cybernetics implanted in his brain, among other tools for accessing external data reservoirs, he could analyse and transcribe those field reports an even greater fifty to sixty per cent faster than even a scribe of the Adeptus Administratum. Further masterwork upgrades to standard Mechanicus implants provided him unparalleled communication with the Machine Spirit of the Valkyrie gunship he currently co-piloted.

Yet Ladon still felt blind. Outside the cockpit was nothing but a murkiness. Not night, for that implied stars or at least clouds cast in a midnight blue. Not true darkness either, for that type of thing was at least certain. The outside held a sinister ambiguity that would’ve made Ladon’s skin crawl, had he even enough left to notice. His eyes only served to hold hololithic status runes that were already present on the instrument panel of the Valkyrie. Moreover, the Valkyrie’s own sensors - which were practically extensions of his own while he was connected to the vehicle - betrayed no small amount of external interference that limited their range and effectiveness. The only comfort that Ladon held was his faith in the pilot Azrarach Aezememnon Aazamindius, who sat in the cockpit behind him. Azrarach could pilot large scale Pilgrim shuttles with more precision than most people could walk, and if there truly was something unnatural about the darkness outside then Azrarach would be least affected due to his mutant status as a Blank; he lacked a presence in the Warp that could be affected by fell sorceries.

The Valkyrie bumped violently, presumably on some air pocket of turbulence. Ladon checked for an impact warning but found his suspicions wanting. Why was this anticipation eating him so badly? But of course, he knew why. Very few things in the galaxy aroused actual emotion in him. Xenoarchaeology and the triumphs of cold steel were perhaps the closest that Ladon could consider a hobby, and the pride in his augmented body hardly held a limit. There were fear reactions, too. Unnatural terrors from beyond the stars and even the Warp, the fear of losing his impressive banks of (arguably heretical) knowledge, the creeping sensation of the alien thing bolted to the right side of his ribcage… 

Then there was _her_.

The vessel jumped again, but Ladon noticed this time that Azrarach was beginning to bank to the starboard and slow to a glide slope. He checked the Valkyrie’s readouts again and craned his neck forward at the runes. He activated the vox with but a thought and spoke to Azrarach.

‘You’re still some ways from the coordinates. Why are you moving us through landing procedures?’ he rumbled in a thick accent.

Azrarach’s voice came back heavily distorted by the vox’s crackling. ‘There’s nowhere to land nearer, dear Ladon.’

‘Nonsense, we are still two thousand meters above sea level and…’

‘Ah, we are not going to make it to any sea!’

Ladon ran through the entire ship’s readouts in a milliseconds before he replied to Azrarach in the negative. Azrarach gave a short laugh and told him to hold on to something. Ladon did no such thing, even as Azrarach nosed the Valkyrie downwards at a violent angle. Ladon vocalised a sigh, an old habit he’d never been able to shake, as the airspeed indicator rune moved from a green glow through yellow and towards red. 

Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light. Ladon’s eyes quickly filtered the excess glare and compensated for the new light levels, allowing him to quickly recognise that he and Azrarach were now flying beneath that sinister murkiness, which now held some form of identity. It was smoke and metallic particles from a seemingly eternal plain of volcanoes. Ladon spun his head around, trying to gain some sort of personal orientation while subroutines in his cranial implants built up a map automatically. 

‘How did you know this was a volcanic world? There were no records,’ Ladon asked Azrarach suspiciously.

‘Experience outranks knowledge, Ladon! The Navy vessel I once served on stopped off here once.’

‘I’ve become the group Octavia…’ Ladon said, a little perturbed by his blind spot.

‘Our who?’

‘Forget it. Just find somewhere safe to land.’

‘Yes, I can get us to a flat enough dormant caldera over there.’ 

A rune lit up on Ladon’s display, and he grunted. ‘Three kilometres from the rendezvous will cause us considerable delay. We cannot keep Romana waiting.’

‘Unfortunately, it will have to do! She’d understand, I am sure.’

‘ _You_ most certainly cannot be sure about her.’

When at last Ladon exited the vessel, without any concern for the potentially harmful atmosphere of Vermithrax III, Azrarach and the two others in the crew compartment were required to apply rebreathers before stepping out. By this time Ladon had already aligned his local navigational data with solar coordinates from the ancient Conquest-class Star Galleon, the _Pride of Gladtonius_ , orbiting above. The sky was clear for what could only be a few kilometers before it hit the metallic smoke barrier. Everything was cast into a hellish orange glow. If he hadn’t known any better, Ladon would’ve believed he was on Nocturne. But even the Salamanders would’ve struggled to make habitation here, he surmised. Of course this would be where his prize sat.

‘Well, Ladon, this looks to be a fine trek!’ boomed Oderic de Valois as he approached from behind to clasp a hand over Ladon’s shoulder.

‘If you wear your legs to stumps, I will happily replace them. You’d make a fine Skitarii candidate,’ Ladon replied. The old feudal-worlder knight laughed a jolly laugh, despite the complete lack of humour in Ladon’s voice, vocal implants or not. Oderic gave Ladon’s shoulder a squeeze, received a swat from a mechadendrite, and then followed after Azrarach, who was already heading for the caldera wall with his nose buried in a dataslate containing Romana’s coordinates. Presently, a small white-haired man loped towards Ladon.

‘Get a move on Cogsly,’ said Nicodemus Zayn, halting entirely before the Tech-priest. Ladon understood why. As a psyker, even if not an entirely active one, Zayn struggled to be too close to Azrarach. As such, standard marching order placed the two as far apart as possible. Ladon considered a defensive remark, but ultimately decided not to. He’d need all of them for dealing with Romana. He looked away from Zayn and saw in the distance a dark cliff formation that was undoubtedly their destination. There was a flash of crimson suddenly, and as he attuned his sight further, he saw that there were near constant - though much smaller - luminary events near the top of the cliffside. He wasn’t sure if he should be excited, or scared.

+++

Skitarii Ranger Neng-Pho-0.4343 marked four targets in his omniscope. He raised his galvanic rifle in preparation, according to standard protector doctrine protocols, then transmitted his data to his commanding Tech-priest to receive confirmation. 

Binary data flashed into his mind, which he translated as, _Negative: friendlies. Make your position known._

Neng-Pho lowered the rifle and stood up from the volcanic rocks he’d been using as a sniper nest.

‘Attention friendlies. Welcome to dig site Kor-110100.’

Ladon stepped forward. ‘Where is Romana?’

‘Processing.’ The Skitarius fell eerily still for a moment before adding, ‘Proceed through the south entrance for nine-hundred and thirteen meteres.’

‘For all I dig at you, you could definitely be so much worse,’ Zayn told Ladon. Ladon made a half-hearted blind swipe at him, but would’ve missed by a good 30 centimetres even if Zayn hadn’t danced back so quickly. 

The group made their way along the basalt pillars that surrounded what seemed to be just another one of the countless volcanic vents of this poor planet, stressed to near death by extreme tidal actions of its moons and the binary star system it orbited. 

‘I should probably warn you about Romana,’ Ladon said quietly.

‘Again?’ Zayn asked drily.

‘She’s… rather volatile. And I haven’t seen her in a while so she’ll probably have a lot of pent up, uh, _emotions_ to spout at me.’

‘I thought Tech-priests weren’t meant to have emotions,’ said Oderic.

‘Nonsense, Oderic! Ladon here is plenty emotional! Right now he is indubitably nervous about meeting an old friend!’ said Azrarach.

‘No,’ grumbled Ladon, ‘But you see, she’s not exactly what I’d call my ‘friend’.’

‘Oh Terra, you’re gonna get us stung by another one of your dodgy contracts,’ Zayn muttered.

‘We don’t talk about what happened on Picty.’

‘Right. More importantly, Ladon,’ Oderic began, ‘I think you’re just going to have to own up to the fact that you haven’t been able to keep in contact with Romana for a while, and you’re going to have to patch up your friendship some other way.’

‘Maybe she’ll fangirl over that visual novel garbage you found?’ Zayn offered.

‘We don’t talk about that either!’ Ladon replied, his vox no longer on a quiet setting.

By now, the digsite was visible. Adeptus Mechanicus buildings hurriedly constructed from the simplest STC templates scattered the basalt pillar plains. They included forges, armouries, motor pools for excavation vehicles, Skitarii barracks, reactors, and the necessary facilities for maintaining and recycling servitors. Their exhaust stacks stretched towards the sky, but ultimately seemed insignificant compared to the existing volcanic smoke. Amidst them thronged the crowd of grey-skinned servitors in cybernetic frames, with the occasional red-robed Skitarii or Tech-priest maintaining order that only Ladon was capable of appreciating. But even the mighty machines of the Omnissiah were dwarfed by what lay on the north end of the plain, amidst a crater of dark scoria with molten lava leaking down from several vents. What was visible, for most of it remained buried despite the unceasing efforts of the Mechanicus agents slaving around its base, appeared to be a segment of some curved, dark orb that stretched into the smoke layer in the atmosphere above, and an untold distance below the terrain still. Strange monolithic crystals, likewise shaped as orbs, floated around the structure, seemingly under their own power. Sickly crimson lightning arced between some of them on occasion, and several other crystals had apparently crashed to lie scattered across the nearby terrain, surrounded by probing Mechanicus. The true size of the artefact, if fully excavated, must’ve been truly immense. Almost impossibly so, as it rivalled that of an Imperial Grand Cruiser. 

‘That’s… a Yu’vath ship,’ Oderic gasped, his cheerful nature drained.

‘That’s impossible. They were hunted down in the Angevin Crusade, and then the Koronus Crusade wiped out those stragglers!’ Azrarach protested.

‘There are always exceptions,’ said Ladon.

‘Ladon?’ Zayn was about to ask him to elaborate, but suddenly everyone’s attention was drawn to a group of figures approaching them. Four Myrmidon warriors flanked a Tech-priest. She was evidently female, for her dark metal breastplate hugged her form neatly over the billowing red dress of her robes, marked with the symbols of Forge World Lucius, much like Ladon’s robes. She carried a large Omnissian Axe, as well as an ornate phosphor serpenta at her hip and another weapon barely visible on her back amidst a sea of mechadendrite tendrils and accompanying servo skulls. Strangely, rather than ordinary mechanicus implants, her face was hidden entirely behind a brass mask carved to bear emotionless female features, almost like the type of death mask one saw in relation to Imperial Saints.

‘Hello!’ she cried to them in a strangely enthusiastic, girlish voice that was clearly artificially generated by vox implants. ‘I am Magos Biologis Romana 47490-1!’

‘Four seven four…’ Oderic tried counting off on his fingers. Zayn turned to Ladon with a queer look on his face. 

Romana meanwhile turned to expressly face Ladon. ‘Tech-priest Ladon! It has been so long since I have seen you, baby brother!’

‘Greetings, Romana,’ Ladon replied in monotone.

‘That is Magos to you!’

‘It most certainly is not.’

‘Tech-priest Ladon, I hope you understand how much trouble I will get into if I get caught in this business! The least you can do is show your dear sister the proper courtesy she deserves as your superior amongst the ranks of the Adeptus Mechanicus!’

‘It’s fine,’ Ladon replied, holding up an arm to dissuade Romana from approaching further. ‘I’ve made arrangements that’ll leave you untouchable, even if somehow someone did catch wind of this.’

‘How very generous of you, Tech-priest Ladon!’

‘Can one of you explain what’s going on?’ Zayn finally asked.

‘Treasure hunting,’ Ladon said. Zayn raised his hands, demanding something further, but Ladon simply turned back to Romana. ‘Have you managed to find a way inside yet?’

‘I have! We breached the outer surface approximately 5,256 seconds before you arrived! So far I have sent in three Skitarii explorator teams and experienced 100% casualties!’

‘Ladon, I hope you don’t expect us to do the same,’ Oderic warned, scratching his beard.

‘This is why I brought Azrarach, of course. Yu’vath technology works on Warp-based phenomena, so his Blank abilities should be able to protect us.’

‘I was wondering why he made my skin crawl!’ Romana chimed.

‘Now that is quite rude, and no way to treat a guest,’ Azrarach replied.

‘You are not guests! You are leeches hoping for free profit from my work! It is not like I really owe Tech-priest Ladon anything!’

‘I represent Rogue Traders these days,’ said Ladon. ‘I can compensate you.’

‘I thought you worked for the Inquisition!’

‘The rumours of my career have been greatly exaggerated,’ Ladon replied as he nervously cast his optical mechadendrite over the rest of the crew. None of them seemed to recognise anything untoward by Romana’s statement. He seized some form of courage and stepped up to his sister. ‘Take us to the entrance. Now.’

Romana seemed hardly fazed by the good few centimetres Ladon stood over her. ‘The sooner you finish your business, the sooner I can clean my hands of it! This way please!’

Trailing Romana and her bodyguards, Azrarach and Zayn took the lead on either side of the procession, while Oderic stopped Ladon in his tracks.

‘You’re acting strange, my friend. Is everything alright?’

‘I indulge in Xenoarchaeology. I merely understand the dangers of what precedes us.’

Oderic frowned at him, forming deep wrinkles across most of his face. The poor knight was aged well past his actual years, thanks in equal parts to the daemon that had shook the foundation of his faith, and the foul sorceries which had robbed him of the remaining youthful essence he’d held. What shocked Ladon about that was only he remembered that event. It was in the Underhive of Milmithia where, under the instructions of Inquisitor Kantor Helix, Ladon had marched to the lair of the xenos known as Hrud alongside Zayn and Oderic. Their entropic auras had sapped Oderic of much of his vitality; had turned his hair from black to grey. Right after, the war against the heretic Bachmeyer had begun, but at that point Ladon and his current companions had called it quits, receiving Kantor’s mercy along with a mind wipe. 

Or so he had thought.

Buried within the circuitry of a heavily encrypted dataslate was Ladon’s entire memory pertaining to the crisis of the Tyrant Star: his mission that he’d abandoned years ago when he took refuge aboard the _Pride of Gladtonius_. He had rediscovered it being carried by his dear Mr. Snuffles, a science project involving the servitorisation of a mummified canid, and was shocked by the depth of it all. He’d since done the research aided by one of Kantor’s replacement acolytes, Fifty Thrones. She had been betrayed by the Inquisition and left in his care, and ultimately wanted revenge against both Kantor and Bachmeyer. Ladon however sought the bigger picture. He’d seen the pieces, and they weren’t making sense. Too many threads stretched themselves thin over the Calixis Sector. But, as he reckoned, there was a noose forming from them, and in that noose he saw two distinct possibilities; simultaneous and contradictory. The head of Kantor or Bachmeyer would lay within, though really he cared not which. It was the hand that strung the noose that he would find. This Yu’vath ship held a key, so he’d been told. 

Zayn wrinkled his nose at the gaping wound that had been cut into the Yu’vath ship’s hull. ‘Thing gives me the creeps.’

‘Good,’ said Ladon. ‘If it gets any worse, let me know. You’ll be our alarm canary.’

‘Oh yeah, cool.’

‘I’m sure all we need is a good stablight,’ Azrarach beamed.

‘Lead the way,’ said Ladon, following on after the Blank. Oderic and Zayn fell in behind him. The halls behind the crystal skin were unnaturally dark, even as Ladon swept a tendril-mounted light through clouds of dust. It seemed almost airless within; the way the dust hovered seemed as if it was unaware, or uncaring, of the world’s gravity. The interior was constructed of an unidentifiable stone or metal, with asymmetric patterns repeated over most of the surfaces. The walls sloped gently out from the grated floor before rising to a sharply peaked ceiling, all built to accommodate disturbingly anthropomorphic inhabitants.. Coating many such surfaces, but especially the gaps in the floor gratings and the corners and acute angles of the wall panel joins, Ladon’s light picked out a horrid colourless substance that seemed to resemble barnacles or dead coral polyps. He bent to examine a nearby growth, and found it was incredibly sturdy despite its outward appearance resembling ash. 

‘This thing is… dead,’ said Zayn. ‘It reminds me of a daemon engine, after they’ve been scrapped and the possessing spirit has returned to the warp. I can tell that even through Azrarach.’

‘Well now, that’s a pity,’ said Azrarach. ‘Lively Machine Spirits are always preferable. Eh, Ladon!’

‘These things are not tended to by Machine Spirits. Zayn is correct: only daemons lived in these circuits.’

‘Ah well, that’s less ideal.’

Oderic drew his Zaythan Warblade. Its sanctified aura cast a pale light that hardly penetrated the gloom of the ship’s bowels.

‘Wait,’ said Zayn, as he frowned. He held up his hand and closed his eyes. ‘Yeah, I hear - no _feel_ \- something.’ He lowered his hand and pointed. ‘That way. Do you hear a… a heartbeat?’

‘No,’ Ladon answered, turning to face the yawning hallway that Zayn indicated.

‘It’s definitely psychic then.’

‘This is why we brought you.’

As they carried forwards, Ladon took the chance to break the silence. ‘How much do you know about the Yu’vath? Azrarach, you mentioned the Crusades did you not?’

‘Yes, I have a passing knowledge of the naval efforts of those conflicts. The Yu’vath ships were immensely powerful, and demanded unconventional tactics to bring them down.’

‘The Yu’vath were a terrible race. Their technology is especially hideous and blasphemous for two reasons. Firstly, they relied heavily on the Warp. Its baleful energies were harnessed as both a power source and ammunition, almost as a mockery to way, for example, the Imperium utilises plasma. Secondly, they utilised an inordinate amount of Abominant Intelligences. Daemons, maybe, but also something else. The soulless sentience, knowledge without life, is especially hateful to the ways of the Omnissiah. And the Yu’vath were extremely corruptive. It was thought safer by the majority of the Imperium to simply destroy any remains, rather than risk trying to study or capture them. Most of the ships knocked out during the Crusades were towed to the nearest available star if they were at all resistant to conventional bombardments. Technology used on ground-level engagements likewise were extremely hostile to any user.’

‘So how did this one come to rest on a tiny volcanic world in a barely charted start system?’ Oderic asked.

‘Carelessness? Or perhaps it yet lived when it fled from battle, only to crash moments after.’

‘And the crew?’

‘Maybe we’ll find out.’

Presently, they stopped before a sealed door, and Ladon hesitantly approached the panel beside it. Zayn, however, stood several metres back.

‘It's through there,’ he said, examining the blood from his nose he’d wiped onto his fingers.

‘Azrarach, get closer to Zayn!’ Ladon growled.

Azrarach looked confused, but moved towards Zayn regardless. Zayn sighed a strained relief while Azrarach’s null aura washed over him. The scratching in his head was replaced by dimness and a pounding headache. Zayn automatically rested his hands on his belt, by the grips of his force swords. He considered himself lucky that, although a latent psyker and soul-bound to the Emperor after the proper ritual training, he relied more on his honed skills with the blade than witchcraft. After all, he’d been taught to fight ever since he could hold a bread knife as a kid, back on his brutal homeworld, Hrax. The Adeptus Astra Telepathica’s teachings had eaten only a comparative sliver of his time. Being near a Blank was uncomfortable, but it certainly beat the whispers of daemons.

Meanwhile, Ladon hesitated before he ran his combi-tool over the door’s control panel. The last time he’d interacted with a xenos ship, he’d gone near mad as something inside it had screamed at him.

**_Gravity is Sight. Time is Desire._ **

He shook his head violently, right as the doors opened. They had only needed a spark of power.

‘Ladon?’ Oderic asked, concern creeping in.

‘I am fine. Systems are optimal.’

Oderic pointed past him. The Tech-priest stared blankly at what lay beyond. The room shone a stark sterile white from behind coats of blood, provided apparently by the many twisted, corpses that lay scattered like marbles. If they had once been human, or even another more common xenos, what they were now was a far cry from that. Their flesh had jellified and melded in parts to molten slag of armour, but the bones had turned to crystal and grown outwards, stretched across the room in patterns even Ladon’s inbuilt cogitators couldn’t describe. 

A droning sound built up in Ladon’s head the longer he looked at it, and static began to flash across the lenses of his eyes. He staggered forward as something amidst the corpses turned to look over its deformed shoulder of raw flesh. It smiled to reveal tendrils of meat instead of teeth.

‘What did you say?’ Ladon demanded.

It stood upon uncannily long legs, arching its torso forward to accommodate the size of the room, and turned to Ladon.

‘You know nothing about her!’ Ladon cried.

It held out one of its arms, shattering the crystal bones it touched as it snaked towards Ladon.

‘I won’t!’

Its nine fingers unraveled themselves and dropped a small, standard Naval-issue Imperial chrono. It hit the ground and bounced, shattering the glass cover as the cogs within sprung free. The sound echoed cruelly in Ladon’s head, and the scene played out to him several times, simultaneously and in slow motion, from a dozen different angles and points of view.

‘Here you go,’ croaked an Adesecularis servitor. He handed Ladon a dataslate.

‘Thank you, Herbert.’

‘Good travels.’

‘And to you.’

Ladon turned from the blood-soaked room. 

Oderic sighed as he sheathed his sword. ‘Of course it was only Herbert. Little devil!’ 

Herbert had once been one of Ladon’s tech thralls, recovered from an old Imperial Guard base. Now he served the dreaded and enigmatic Wraith, and often vanished in and out of space time according to her whim. Ladon found it easiest to take this on a day-to-day basis.

Azrarach was meanwhile crouched beside Zayn, whose nosebleed had increased in severity to the point where he’d grown suddenly lightheaded. 

Zayn coughed. ‘Happy now, Cog boy?’

‘Perhaps. We have no reason to stay here any longer. I would enjoy my rest cycles more knowing this thing had been blasted to atoms by the _Pride_ ,’ Ladon said, striding past Oderic and lifting Zayn onto his shoulder via mechadendrite, despite the protests from the tiny man.

+++

‘Query: What kind of archaeotech does your Rogue Trader own?’ Romana asked as the party emerged from the Yu’vath ship.

‘You’re not the least bit curious about how we made it out in one piece?’ Ladon asked dryly.

‘Negative! I estimated that my Skitarii possessed only 0.41% similarity to your combat rating!’

‘How many did you say you sent down?’ Oderic interrupted.

‘Twenty five, plus three Kataphron-class combat servitors!’

‘We didn’t see a trace of them. There were some bodies, but they weren’t Mechanicus. And they were behind locked doors.’

‘Understood! I will log their losses accordingly!’

Ladon tried to keep walking, but Romana stepped in front of him. He lowered his head in resignation. ‘You can come aboard the _Pride of Gladtonius_ later to discuss payment with the Highlander. I suggest you fully pack up as well. We’re planning to lance this area.’

‘An intelligent move! I will be moved to orbit in no more than 3,600 seconds! If you try and escape without paying me, I will-’

There was a sudden earthquake that knocked everyone to the ground. Oderic scrambled to his feet first, and turned instinctively to the Yu’vath ship. 

‘It’s doing something!’

Ladon rolled over onto his back while he struggled up, seeing that the monoliths hovering around the sphere segment were moving with increased rapidity, with much more frequent lightning strikes arcing between them.

Zayn pulled himself out from under the Tech-priest’s legs. ‘That thing is suddenly a lot less dead!’

‘If I’m not mistaken,’ Azrarach pondered, apparently standing unfazed, ‘it’s activating a Warp drive!’

Ladon leapt up and grabbed Romana. ‘Tell me you have a shuttle here!’

‘Query: Have you forgotten the pride of great Lucius? I arrived via teleportarium!’

‘Even better! Get it working now!’

‘But the rites of activation take at least twenty-size hund-’ Another violent shake cut her off. Lightning began to strike the excavation camp, and an entire bunker suddenly exploded. ‘Understood: increased haste required! Please follow me!’ 

Romana grabbed Ladon’s arm and took off for a distant part of the site, already beaming instructions via data tether to the Tech-priests who operated the teleportarium. The crew followed closely, dodging scurrying Skitarii who were only receiving inadequate instructions for the situation at hand, and before long they reached a large metal disc engraved with runes. Nearby Tech-priests hurriedly swung censers of incense across the device while another intoned a binaric chant. Romana leapt onto the central pad, practically dragging Ladon with her. Azrarach was next, trying to help both Oderic and Zayn aboard.

‘Whenever you’re ready!’ Ladon called.

Romana began chanting, still in her default tone, skipping several verses ahead of her subordinates to the final activation sequence. The rather bewildered Tech-priest at the console placed his hand on a rune panel. There was a blinding flash of actinic lightning, and then Ladon realised he was blind again.


	2. Chapter 2

#  II.

_ Ladon woke slowly, blinking away the lights from the hallway outside. _

_ ‘They have come for you, Tech-priest Ladon!’ Romana said from the door. _

_ Ladon grumpled, rubbing his chin. His tongue was too sticky for a snarky reply. Instead he merely stood slowly, dragged down by more than just the manacles that bound his wrists. _

_ ‘You must remember not to hate Tech-priest Olivia! She only did what she was taught to be right!’ Romana said. _

_ Ladon moved to the door, but Romana stood in the way, placing a metal hand on his shoulder. _

_ ‘Betrayed by my own vat-sibling,’ Ladon mused. _

_ ‘We all knew what you were doing was wrong!’ _

_ ‘But it was correct! I provided undeniable proofs, quintuple checked every scrap of the theorem, cross referenced with 96 other primary sources and…’ _

_ Romana pinched his lips shut with a delicate manipulator tendril that snaked from over her shoulder. ‘Something that is factually correct may still be considered Heresy!’ _

_ Ladon swiped away her contact. ‘You’re just as bad as her. Holiday and Suda too; this entire Forge World! We’ve grown so scared of threats that we are blinded to truths!’ _

_ Romana cocked her head. ‘The disaster of the Inculcuta Schism shows the flaw in those vanities! Thinkers like you are the same who left my body to burn!’ _

_ ‘I merely submitted a thesis. Is thought so frowned upon in this blasted Mechanicus?’ _

_ ‘Affirmative!’ _

_ Ladon turned to her, examining the mask that hid her ruined face and fed oxygen and nutrients directly into her bloodstream, bypassing her melted, charred mess of a throat. Yet the Adeptus Mechanicus believed that knowledge of another race’s technology, a mere  _ suggestion  _ of such, was more harmful than the roiling energies of miniature suns that mortal men tried to keep locked in flimsy reactor batteries? _

_ ‘You agree with me, though,’ he said quietly. _

_ ‘This is possible! But I won’t say that to the Inquisition!’ She grabbed his hand. ‘Please come with me: delays will only make things worse!’ _

_ They walked together in silence through narrow corridors buried in the crust of hollow Lucius. Ladon hardly picked up the noise of the forges. The  _ thump-thump _ of hammering industry blended in with the sound of his heartbeat and the flat-footed gait that only led him closer and closer to his demise. Vanities indeed… _

_ The whine of a shuttle’s engines brought him back to the present. He looked up and was nearly blinded by the shuttle’s floodlights. Standing in the centre of the glare was a hulking, robed figure. As Romana led him closer, Ladon could pick out more details. The robes were Martian red, and the figure’s eyes glowed green above a sea of tubes running into his chest. Mechadendrites swam through the air behind him, creating further disorientation from the constantly shifting shadows. When Ladon was only a few meters away, the figure strode forth, clanking an exotic staff against the landing pad floor. _

_ ‘Greetings,’ he droned. ‘I am Inquisitor Kantor Helix.’ _

_ Ladon bowed his head. ‘I am at your mercy, your Lordship.’ _

_ Kantor carried on as if Ladon had said nothing. ‘I would very much like to hear your theories on the Cadian Pylons. Please, come aboard. You work for me now.’ _

+++

Sirens wailed, overloaded cogitator banks sparked, and smoke and vapours billowed throughout the teleportarium chamber. Ladon was simply pleased to find all of his atoms were in fact intact. Romana, it appeared, was less than pleased at other things. In Techna-lingua, she bleated at the other Priests and Adepts even as servitors dashed around to attempt damage control. A senior Tech-priest approached Romana and attempted to scoldingly rebut her actions. Romana’s binary reached a screeching crescendo, and then she switched back to low-Gothic.

‘If I wanted your opinion, Seven-Six-Two-Nine, I would tear your cranium from your tin-foil spine and extract the memories into a semi-sentient maintenance servitor so that you could cry about your perceived injustice to the business end of a lathe for your remaining operational lifespan!’ she chimed in pleasant monotone. Seven-Six-Two-Nine merely froze in place as he tried to process this. 

While this happened, Ladon tried to track down his fellow Rogue Traders. He found Zayn in short measure by accidentally walking into him, but the pair of them afterwards found Oderic and Azrarach in a less than ideal condition. The knight lay against the chamber’s wall, cradling an unconscious Azrarach. A cursory glance told Ladon all he needed to know; the rushed activation of the teleportarium had severed Azrarach’s leg. The limb likely floated in the Warp now, but Ladon ignored such imagery and bent down to Azrarach. Without a word, Ladon disregarded Oderic’s attempt to staunch the blood flow using his tabard, and let his mechadendrites fly over the stump - hardly the top half of his right thigh - injecting painkillers, stimm, and coagulants, before covering it all in a bandage wrap. He hauled his patient up into his arms, and went searching for Romana to demand a medbay. 

The chaos in the chamber had not let up in the slightest as an increasing volume of servitors and adepts rushed in and out, carting spare parts and copious amounts of candles or incense intended to appease the wounded and belligerent Machine Spirit.

‘Tech-priest Ladon!’ Romana called, dragging him out into a quieter hallway of the ship. ‘It appears your mission has spelled disaster for my ship! I will be charging double in order to compensate myself!’

‘Yes, yes, I’ll get whatever you want. Where is your medbay?’

‘My personal lab is 614 metres down corridor 22-4A, forty-third door on the left!’ Romana answered, eyeing up Azrarach as she handed Ladon a key. ‘I will prepare a shuttle so that we can board your Rogue Trader vessel when you are done!’

‘Zayn, Oderic, go with her. I won’t be long.’

‘Will Az…?’ Oderic began. Ladon gave a sharp nod before turning and walking off.

Ladon’s cybernetic feet clanked down the corridor of Romana’s ship. The alarm system continued to bathe him and Azrarach in ruby light. Red, like the soil of Mars and the blessings of the Omnissiah. Red, like the blood of men that was spent as currency within the Imperium. It was simply too common to be considered auspicious. Mankind surrounded themselves with memento mori, especially a human skull, to remind themselves of the debt they owed to the God Emperor who sat martyred, unmoving, in His Golden Throne on Terra. Though was it really the Imperium’s morbid obsession with death, or a celebration of the Emperor’s immortality? He was sustained by arcane and ancient machines of the Mechanicus. How curious then, that ordinary humans remind themselves of their weak flesh, and yet often resist the change into machines? The Mechanicus altered this symbol; their icon was a skull half-bone and half-machine. This holy machinery, the True Flesh, would save dear Azrarach’s life.

‘It’s a… Gothic-class Cruiser,’ said Azrarach, stirring to a wake. He drew in a deep, rattling breath. ‘Although just as beautiful as any other variant of the Lunar, don’t you think it’s a little plain for a Magos?’

‘Romana holds pride in her abilities, not her possessions,’ Ladon replied.

‘Is… is Belladonna alright?’

Ladon looked down at Azrarach. The brace of pistols strapped over his old Naval uniform seemed intact, with each holster appropriately full. ‘Your weapon is fine.’

‘Ah, good.’ Azrarach gave a long sigh. ‘I wouldn’t want her getting touchy with me!’ He added with a weak chuckle.

Ladon grunted. ‘I really would like to get acquainted with her Machine Spirit.’

‘You just don’t believe it isn’t an Abominable Intelligence. Our forebears cooked up many miracles back in the Dark Age of Technology, Ladon.’

‘I am familiar,’ he said half-heartedly.

Azrarach stopped gazing at the ceiling once Ladon finally turned into Romana’s medbay. ‘So it’s as bad as it feels?’ he said, turning his head to examine the dozens of glass vials and cylinders filled with medicae agents. Ladon moved Azrarach onto an operating slab. The room cast a green light over Azrarach, and he finally glanced at his wound. 

He forced a smile. ‘Ah, that’s a pity…’ 

Ladon had his head in a supply locker while his mechadendrites plundered several nearby shelves above and below, working with an uncanny familiarity with the layout of everything. He swept back towards Azrarach and set up an intravenous supply of drugs while simultaneously removing the sodden bandage and applying disinfectant. Azrarach couldn’t tell which limbs performed which duty. The Tech-priest remained eerily silent as he worked, leaving Azrarach to cover the unnerving whirring of Ladon’s cybernetics with his talk on Gothic-class Cruisers.

‘It’s uncommon for them to be deployed alone. Or at least, that’s the practise while in a battlefleet. A true Lunar or Dominator-class would usually pair with a Gothic to take down enemy shields, allowing the Gothic’s lances to deal direct damage to the hull.’

Ladon dropped the old bandage into a waiting receptacle, pausing only briefly to examine the trail of blood that led all the way back to the teleportarium. He moved into the back of the room. Azrarach craned his neck to watch the Tech-priest, seeing his metallic visage warped by the cylindrical glasses that lay on the shelf between them. As he moved along the shelf searching for what he needed, his head was alternatively magnified and shrunk. 

‘Did you know the Gothic was based on the old Apocalypse-class Battlecruiser?’

Ladon gave a microsecond to let his cerebral implants dredge up that fact from some old record he’d passingly absorbed. ‘I did,’ he lied.

‘It’s the same size as the  _ Pride of Gladtonius _ , too,’ Azrarach said as he swept his arm towards the ceiling, ‘but needs an additional 30% of the crew!’

‘For ordinary Naval crews, perhaps,’ Ladon replied. He began moving back towards Azrarach, trailing an IV stand hooked with a blood bag in his manipulator, while holding part of a cybernetic leg in his arms. ‘Mechanicus crews are far more efficient.’

‘I suppose if they’re anything like you, there’d be a lot less feeding to take care of at least.’

Ladon grunted as he slid another hypodermic into Azrarach’s arm before he touched a rune on the side of the slab, leaving a bloody mark. The table rose and tilted slightly so that Azrarach’s leg was higher than his head. Ladon swung around to the closer side and let his mechadendrites snake towards the wound, inserting various electrodes that he fused to the remains of Azrarach’s nervous system. He thanked the Omnissiah for the extraordinarily clean cut, perhaps the only positive side-effect of teleportation mishap. Azrarach winced in discomfort, but the drugs in him were strong enough to block out most of the pain. He found himself unable to watch Ladon assemble the upper brace of the cyber-limb, focussing instead on the comparatively amusing spinning and telescoping motions of his eye lenses while they danced to the tune of his work, uncaring of the flying droplets of blood.

Ladon’s combi-tool whirred and chirruped as he embedded the limb within Azrarach’s stump, and as he moved downwards the artifice took shape piece by piece. At last he began a binaric chant while wafting incense over the limb in accordance with the Rite of Holy Replacement. Presently he stepped back and bid Azrarach to try moving his foot. 

‘What do you know, old chap? Good as new!’

‘Lay still for a while,’ Ladon instructed him, moving away to replace the tools he had gathered. ‘It is only a makeshift job. If you experience discomfort, let me know once we reach the  _ Pride of Gladtonius _ . I can perform better with my own medbay.’

‘You seemed adept enough in here.’

Ladon paused to consider that. ‘My sister taught me everything I know about the chirurgeon’s trade. I tend to organise my labs after her example.’

‘That’s quite nice, Ladon.’

Ladon grunted again, finally returning to Azrarach’s side. ‘Don’t try and support your full weight all at once. I’ll escort you to the shuttle bay.’

+++

‘I must say,’ said Romana, ‘your home vessel is extremely unorthodox! Even with a Writ of Trade, I am certain it would not pass any scrutiny from Imperial authorities!’

‘I didn’t criticise your vessel,’ Ladon protested as he slid aside to let a procession of Kroot mercenaries through the hangar.

‘You blew up my vessel!’

‘Technically that was the Yu’vath’s fault,’ Zayn added.

‘And that whole excavation was also Tech-priest Ladon’s idea!’

‘By the way, Tech-priest Ladon, my Navigator was unable to track the Warp signature of the Xenos artefact! It reportedly transitioned out of realspace while within the planet’s atmosphere! Estimated casualties on the planet’s surface: 100%!’

‘Not my problem,’ Ladon rumbled.

‘It will be when your Rogue Trader subtracts my compensation from your profit factor!’

‘I don’t do this for the money.’

Romana shrugged; an eerily human emotion on her.

‘Where the hell is that Highlander?’ Ladon muttered after some time of relative silence.

‘He probably forgot,’ Zayn droned.

‘I cannot say that this treatment will improve things in your favour!’ Romana said as she spun to face Zayn.

‘It's nothing personal,’ Zayn replied in his previous tone. ‘The Highlander forgets his own kid’s name more often than not.’

Romana turned back to Ladon in silent questioning. He shrugged, so she turned to Azrarach instead. ‘Query: Are you certain your leg experiences no discomfort?’

‘Ladon did quite the banger of a job, thank you for asking!’

Romana stretched an optical mechadendrite down to inspect. ‘This is something I would expect to see in a Necromunda street doctor’s shop! You can clearly see the seam where you cauterised the exodermic layer!’

Ladon bunched his hands into fists but managed to remain silent. Azrarach meanwhile protested that Ladon was the best cybernetic surgeon he’d ever met. ‘He even did all his implants himself!’

‘You have certainly collected more metal than when I last saw you!’ Romana admitted. She stalked up to her brother and began examining him. In response, Ladon desperately tried to push her away, and the two soon got into a slight tussle, swatting at each other with a tangled mess of cybernetic tendrils.

‘Oi, why’re y’all fightin’ an’ what not?’ cried the venerable Highlander Chey McClawe Myslin the Unkillable. Ladon, after untangling himself from his sister, introduced him as such to her. She attempted to regain her composure as she bowed to the scruffy-bearded, pale-haired man whose only noticeable garment was the bowler hat he wore; almost unheard of amongst the regularly ostentatious Rogue Traders.

‘Greetings! I am Magos Biologis Romana 47490-1! Your Tech-priest Lado-’

‘Pleased to meet ya!’ Highlander Chey said, holding his hand forward to Romana. She hesitated, and then shook it. The Highlander leaned over to Ladon and whispered, ‘Do I need ta shake the wee metal snake ones too?’

‘No, Chey.’

Highlander Chey turned back to Romana, beaming. She pried his fingers off her hand. 

‘Thank you, Rogue Trader! You may have noticed my vessel in orbit around this planet! This is because I was collaborating with your Tech-priest Ladon in an archeological excavation and have now come to receive payment, which he promised you would provide!’

‘Oh really?’ Highlander Chey asked. ‘What did ya find?’

‘Nothing,’ Ladon said. ‘It flew away.’

‘Och well, that’s a wee shame innae?’

‘I guess so!’ Romana interrupted, trying to stand between the Highlander and Ladon. ‘Its escape also severely damaged my teleportarium chamber and cost the lives of approximately 74 Adeptus Mechanicus personnel!’

‘Oi have a few spare techies if you want ‘em. Do ya want Ladon?’

‘No, that is fine! I have been promised an equal exchange of archaeotech you are said to keep in your hold!’

The Highlander turned to Ladon and mouthed, ‘What  _ do _ we have in our hold?’ Ladon shrugged.

Romana gave a brief burst of binaric static from her vox, but then composed herself. ‘Query: Would you mind if I take a look myself? I have quite the appraising eye for this type of thing!’

‘Why would ya want to do that?’

Romana might’ve blinked in disbelief if she’d had eyes. ‘So that Tech-priest Ladon can uphold his end of the bargain!’

The Highlander frowned and scratched absently at his beard. ‘Wait what was ya bargain?’

‘I tracked a signal of Yu’vath origin for Tech-priest Ladon and set up an excavation on the planet’s surface so he could recover a xenos relic!’

The Highlander nodded twice, folded his arms, and looked at Ladon. ‘An’ what’d ya recover again?’

‘Nothing,’ said Ladon. Oderic gave a brief cough but when Romana wheeled on him he looked away.

‘Query: What do you mean you recovered nothing?’ she asked.

‘The ship was empty. False positive,’ Ladon said flatly.

‘Well then, oi can hardly expect to pay someone who dinnae finish tha job.’

Romana staggered as if she was about to fall forwards. ‘Query: Excuse me?’

‘Well if yer bargain was ta help Ladon find some xenos relic, and he dinnae get that, then ye’ve nae finished the job!’

‘But I used up valuable resources to help him!’

‘Did ya do all ya could in yer power ta stop it floi’in’ away?’

‘I…’ Romana’s vox broke into static for a few beats, ‘No! I wasn’t aware I had to!’

‘Didn’t we fight the Yu’vath or someting?’ the Highlander asked Ladon.

‘No, that was your own crew. Before we joined.’

‘Aye, tha’s right! Yeah, nae that toipe of ting happened all the toime. Whoi didn’t ya just have ya psyker whip it when it started takin’ off?’

‘I do not possess a psyker!’

‘Should get one.’

Romana suddenly stomped on the ground. ‘I will not stand for this! I am owed compensation for my efforts!’ The tantrum was only made all the more hilarious by her preset vox tone.

The Highlander looked at Ladon again, who merely nodded. The Highlander sighed, held up a finger, and walked out of the hangar. 

‘He’ll be right back,’ Ladon explained. Romana continued to glare at him in silent, seething fury.

Fairly soon, the Highlander returned with a large wooden crate stamped with his Dynasty’s seal. He handed it to Romana, who almost collapsed under the weight of it despite the fact that the Highlander seemed hardly affected.

‘There ya go! Forty-six Grox Guns, still in the pack!’ he beamed.

Romana transferred the cargo to her servo-arm as she shakily stood once more. ‘Query: What is a Grox Gun?’

‘Archaeotech,’ said Ladon and the Highlander at once. Romana stood stock still for a few moments, during which only the sound of Kroot braying in the background could be heard, before she slowly walked back onto the boarding ramp of her shuttle.

‘I’ll see you around then, Romana!’ Ladon called to her.

She turned and stared at him as the ramp began to retract up into the ship’s hull. ‘Not if I see you first, Tech-priest Ladon! Not if I see you first!’

+++

Ladon sat in his personal quarters some hours later, after he’d properly tended to Azrarach and also ensured that Zayn’s mind hadn’t been split asunder. He kept the cramped space mostly dark, with only a single desk illuminated by a tiny, pale glowglobe. Onboard the  _ Pride of Gladtonius _ , there was rarely a chamber that could be considered small. Ladon simply kept his room filled with odd technological relics, discarded half-finished projects, and stack after stack of ancient, dusty tomes. Tonight he was hunched over his desk with nothing but Herbert’s dataslate and a sheet of fresh parchment weighed down by a black cube glowing with green lines. With a sigh, Ladon switched on the dataslate. It powered on with green lights forming the Imperial Aquila, which then distorted as the screen flickered. A skull appeared instead, which then flew to the top of the screen, where a text-based communications program began running, starting with a message from an unknown user. Not that it was any real mystery to him.

> ?????: Hello, Ladon.

Ladon replied, not bothering inputting an ID for himself.

> User: Hello Lexi.
> 
> ?????: I must thank you for freeing that Yu’vath ship for me. I’d been hunting it for a while.
> 
> User: How many more hoops do I need to jump through to get a straight answer from you?
> 
> ?????: Hmmm…
> 
> ?????: I think you’ve earned a reward ;)
> 
> User: …
> 
> ?????: You chose an odd time to leave Kantor’s side. You’ve only got half the picture because of it, after all. 
> 
> User: So it is Bachmeyer?
> 
> ?????: Bingo.
> 
> ?????: Or at least, the next piece of the puzzle is.
> 
> ?????: I won’t spoil the final shape.
> 
> ?????: It’s sharp, though.
> 
> User: Straight. Answers.
> 
> ?????: Haha.
> 
> ?????: Yu’vath are a terrifying race. But I’ve grown quite acclimated to the taste of their souls. 
> 
> ?????: What am I saying? I’ve grown addicted to the damned things. There’s something about the way they sit in the warp. Or rather, the way they *don’t* quite sit. Ever Changing in ways even Chaos can’t quite comprehend.
> 
> User: I have heard a lot about your… habits.
> 
> ?????: Have you read my files then? I’m sure it wasn’t hard to convince Chey to hand them over.

Ladon waited for Lexi to continue, simultaneously running the data he had on her through his head. Lexi had been a genetic abomination cloned from Human and Eldar DNA, feigning to be an Enginseer Prime of the Adeptus Mechanicus for unknown reasons. Her taste for the souls of Yu’vath, no doubt brought about by a psychic anomaly from her xenos ‘heritage’, developed at a later point during the Koronus Crusade, where she joined Highlander Chey aboard  _ Pride of Gladtonius _ . Evidently, the consumption of Yu’vath souls had allowed her to mostly transcend physical form, gaining some sort of symbiosis with the Grand Cruiser known as  _ The Wraith _ . That bit still confused Ladon, since his notes on  _ The Wraith _ itself were still rather patchy.

Suddenly, the dataslate flashed a new message.

> ?????: Oh so you’re playing coy now?
> 
> User: I’m just letting you talk.
> 
> ?????: I could go on all day if you let me, but neither of us have the time.
> 
> ?????: Go ahead and tell me one thing you want to know, and I’ll try my best.

Ladon needed no further thought before answering.

> User: What was your role in the war against the Tyrant Star, and your ultimate goal?
> 
> ?????: That’s two things.
> 
> User: And I’d wager they’re the same answer.
> 
> ?????: :)
> 
> ?????: Maybe. I’ll tell just one and let you decide.
> 
> ?????: You remember the Man Who Speaks in Hands? You and #%^#?#*@ met him first on Yuhgor XII. During the Koronus Crusade, he’d stolen something from me and I wanted it back. I simply let Kantor’s goons do the work, that includes you of course, and then once Thrones, Syra and Gaius ended it in the Cazador system, I merely came in to claim what was rightfully mine.

Ladon’s scribe-tines had been scribbling everything down on his parchment as he read, but this newest set of info made him stop and double check both the dataslate and the parchment. He made a mental note to chase up on that.

> User: Yuhgor XII: I remember that. You showed up right afterwards, looking for him.
> 
> ?????: I thought I could catch him. It was the first time he’d shown his head in a while. I think 30 years, 40?
> 
> User: How is he tied to the Tyrant Star?
> 
> ?????: I said I’d only tell you one thing. Besides, you could always ask Thrones, couldn’t you?

Damned mutant was reading his thoughts, after all. 

> User: You hadn’t finished explaining anyway.
> 
> ?????: You were the one who interrupted.
> 
> ?????: But fine, I know what you’re going to ask :)
> 
> ?????: ‘What did the Man Who Speaks in Hands steal from you?’
> 
> User: Well?
> 
> ?????: The soul of Mwenye, The Rebirthed Revengeance. The Yu’vath God.

Ladon paused, once again staring at the words he’d written down. This was something new. 

> ?????: That help?
> 
> User: Yes. Thank you, Lexi.
> 
> ?????: :)
> 
> ?????: Good luck on your wild goose chase.
> 
> User: Don’t patronise me.
> 
> ?????: Boop!

The dataslate powered off right as Ladon read Lexi’s last word. He sighed, and tossed the device into the nearest bin. Herbert grumbled and bent to retrieve it.

‘Oh a little work won’t kill you,’ Ladon replied in equal measure.

Herbert flipped him off. Ladon turned back to his parchment, knowing Herbert would only return to Lexi and  _ The Wraith _ when he wasn’t looking. He made as if to rub his eyes but of course only managed to smudge ink onto his lenses. Cursing in binaric, he stumbled through his room for a cloth. Once he cleaned his eyes off, he glanced at a wall-mounted chrono to discover it was well into the ship’s night cycle. He clenched his left arm, the one that was still flesh, in thought. Yeah, Thrones would still be up. The poor girl never slept anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

#  III.

_ Ruber Manum Dex _ cut through the cavernous void like a silent shark, impossibly agile despite the seeming bulk of its Vengeance-class Grand Cruiser hull. Chunks of blasted planetoids and shattered ships crackled against its void shields, burning to cinders before coming anywhere near the seven and a half kilometre hull that was painted deepest vermillion so as to appear almost black. The failing light of a distant star flickered in the reflections of golden embossments displaying proudly not only the Aquila, but the icon of Imperium’s Eye that Sleepeth Not.

The ship’s owner was a likewise imposing man. One could not accuse him for any kind of compensation aimed at the ship’s majesty, for Inquisitor Tamburlaine was a towering man, near the height of an Astartes though much thinner, like a great beanstalk wrapped in a dusty black coat. But more imposing was the way his very will seemed to bore out from his narrow grey eyes before he’d even opened his mouth. Though aged to the point of baldness, his features held a natural joviality that provided a sense of handsomeness. But it was with his empty, gods-defying gaze that could frighten even the most steadfast servants of the Emperor, even as he broke his enemies. 

Presently, his strange eyes gazed upon the silent remains of a battle long since fought, centred around the core of a dead star. Flanking him was his personal aide, Caluin. Old, bent Caluin was a mess of cybernetics attempting to pass himself off as an Astropath, wheezing through his mechanical lungs while he kept his third eye open to the Warp to supplement the augur scans of the sensor operators. 

‘Do you feel the loss of so many souls?’ Tamburlaine asked quietly in such a deep, smooth voice that Caluin felt in his chest.

Caluin answered in a clearly artificial voice that somehow still conveyed the agony of his crippled form, ‘The souls of the soldiers here? They did their duty. The souls of the fallen enemy? May the God Emperor have mercy on them.’

Tamburlaine turned in a fluid motion and walked to a console displaying a hololithic render of the system scan. The Gothic letters projected beneath labeled the region  _ Cazador _ . 

‘Those are words and assessments, o Astropath mine. I asked if you could  _ feel _ it.’ The Inquisitor leaned in to examine the image of what appeared to be a large tower spire that was in free fall around the dead star.

Caluin focused on the currents of the Warp overlapping in realspace, furrowing his brow as a familiar sweat rolled off his head. ‘There is nothing, my lord. As if the death peals of these soldier’s very souls had been wiped clean.’

‘I believe they have been taken.’

‘Taken, my lord? You mean away from not only the mighty God Emperor, but the vultures of Chaos as well?’

Tamburlaine flicked the hololith, as if expecting the spire to go flying across the diorama. Instead, his finger’s intrusion merely caused a ripple that spread across the projection. He pouted, and stood straight, turning his head so that he gazed sidelong at Caluin. ‘I was just about to ask the same thing.’

At some unseen signal, the bridge doors hissed open, causing Caluin to turn instinctively to the sound of a body hitting the floor shortly after. Tamburlaine moved up to inspect the prisoner, a slender figure with sharp androgynous features marred by the wounds one could only earn from deliberate torture, layered over the more subtle scars of war. Two monstrous hulks shrouded in hooded robes flanked her, their ornately painted arms rippling with superhuman muscle and studded with the plugs one expected of those made to wear power armour, but they seemed like they would dwarf even Astartes.

‘Miss Anek Krowe,’ Tamburlaine cooed as he approached his prisoner. He received a humourless chuckle in response.

‘Not many people get that “Miss” part right on the first try,’ Krowe drawled. 

Caluin wasn’t sure how to react to any of this. He saw only the warm, abyssal depths of Krowe’s soul, and wondered what kind of woman had earned such a countenance. Krowe had been, in some ways, the protege of infamous radical xenarite Inquisitor Kantor Helix, and Caluin wondered how much she took after her old boss. Of course she seemed to have spent little effort on remaining on Kantor’s side. Looking at her now, prisoner before Tamburlaine, he wondered if her ‘disappearance’ had been such a wise choice.

‘Krowe, I have questions,’ Tamburlaine continued, rattling off in his odd bassy tone, ‘regarding the fate of the crew you served with during and after the Reclamation of Atrai, that culminated in Kantor Helix’s attack on the so called Tyrant Star.’

‘Classified,’ said Krowe. One of the hulks threw her to the floor and pressed his bare foot onto her head until blood trickled from her nose. Tamburlaine gave a subtle, lazy gesture for him to cease, then stuffed his hands into his pockets. He then moved towards Krowe, leaving her staring at his boot. 

‘What Ordo did you fall into when Kantor promoted you, Krowe?’ Tamburlaine asked.

Krowe replied levely, refusing to look up at Tamburlaine. ‘Kantor didn’t have one; I don’t have one.’

Maybe Tamburlaine laughed, but it was hard to align the sound with anything meant to come out of a human. Krowe chuckled in response. Tamburlaine drew his hands from his pockets, along with some sort of eldritch glow.

‘Let us get properly acquainted before you’re unable to comprehend anything. I am Inquisitor Marlowe Tamburlaine.’ He slid one glove off, and above Krowe he raised his red right hand.

He smiled and added, ‘Ordo Necros.’

Caluin instinctively tried to close empty eye sockets at the sound of Krowe’s screams.

+++

Ladon swept his head-gaze clockwise, and his optics-gaze counter. Throne’s room was tidier than he expected. The small woman lay on her bed dressed in a comfortable bodysuit while she scrolled through a dataslate. Ladon was right; she didn’t sleep.

‘Heya, Ladon.’ She tossed the slate aside and sat up. ‘Oh I’m sorry,  _ Super Ladon Guru _ .’

‘ _ Tech-priest _ Super Ladon Guru,’ he corrected good-naturedly. 

‘I didn’t know the door was unlocked,’ she admitted.

‘Apologies. I came to ask, would you mind if we talked about something potentially harmful?’

‘Maybe,’ Thrones said warily, running a hand nervously, maybe protectively, through her pixie cut. Ladon watched the scar on her wrist as her dark hair parted before it.

‘It's about the Tyrant Star,’ Ladon said hesitantly.

‘Oh that old thing,’ Thrones said, letting her breath out. Ladon felt equally relieved.

‘I’d like to know how that war ended, just before my crew picked you up. When you, Gaius, and Syra fought the Man Who Speaks in Hands.’

Thrones froze up right where Ladon expected she would. He vocalised a sigh. He honestly expected better from someone who actually had replaced their heart with the True Flesh. 

‘You’re begging for a lobotomy,’ he said as a half-joke.

Thrones twitched and shook her head, coming back to her normal self. Or at least, a conscious form. Ladon instantly detected the moment her psyche deflated and she drew into a dark inner pit instead.

‘Thrones?’

‘I’m fine,’ she said quietly. Ladon crossed his arms, waiting for her to start talking again. She only stared at the wall behind him.

‘Can you tell me what happened during that final fight in the Cazador system, before we picked you up?’ Ladon asked after what he calculated to be an acceptable length of silence.

Thrones rubbed at one of her eyes. Like Ladon’s they were cybernetic, but unlike his they were meant to blend in with the rest of her appearance. Amongst the main crew of the  _ Pride _ , only Ladon and the Highlander surpassed her for an amount of missing flesh. 

‘I was there with Kantor’s warband,’ Thrones said. ‘We fought a daemon of some kind. Three other daemons talked to us and said it wasn’t over. For me it might as well have been though because... well, you know.’

‘I need to know in order to help you,’ Ladon pressed. ‘What was the daemon you fought?’

‘You don’t want to help me, I’m just a means to an end.’

‘Incorrect. Please continue with your previous recollection.’

‘No? Why bother looking after me, really? I’m just a tool you can use to get back at Bachmeyer. You don’t need to lie to me.’

‘Helping you is in the best interest of many parties. Hurting you or lying to you; this provides no tactical advantage whatsoever.’

Thrones wheeled on Ladon. Evidently her tear ducts remained within the flesh of her face as moisture welled beneath her eyes. ‘I’ve already dragged you up and down this blasted sector and for what? More breadcrumbs? Just give up on me.’ When Ladon remained silent and unflinching in the way only a servant of the Mechanicus could, Thrones nearly screamed at him, ‘What? What do you want from me?’

‘You are having an episode. If you do not calm down then I will administer sedatives,’ Ladon said plainly. Throne’s dataslate bounced off his head, but he again remained unflinching as she howled at him to get out.

Ladon retrieved the dataslate from the ground with one of his mechadendrites, unsure what to do with it. Thrones was meanwhile drilling holes into him with her gaze, so he merely retreated and keyed the door shut. 

Ladon stood still, processing the previous interaction, only to reflexively wheel around as someone spoke his name from behind him.

‘Uh, you alright there, Ladon?’ Oderic asked, his eyes darting between Ladon’s shoulder mounted lasgun, wrist mounted storm bolter, and stomach mounted heavy stubber. The Tech-priest sighed and retracted his weapons systems.

‘You startled me.’

‘Well, my apologies. Is our new friend still troubled?’

Ladon needlessly turned to the closed door as if to check who Oderic referred to. ‘Her condition continues to vex me. I required information as to the close of the Tyrant Star campaign and she instead got hung up on her own failures to that ex-lover of hers.’

‘The Tyrant Star? Why would she know anything about that old legend?’

Ladon froze for a second. ‘She worked for a radical Inquisitor, remember?’

‘Oh yes that Helix fellow, right? I’ve heard the Highlander mention he was an odd one. Although you two seem similar, if you ask me. Except he’s a  _ real _ Inquisitor, and you just have that fake rosette.’

‘It’s a real rosette, I merely falsified the records within,’ Ladon protested.

‘Yes, so you could go poking around in Necron tombs without getting shot by one of those, what do you call them, Commissars?’

‘Commissars do not discipline the Adeptus Mechanicus.’

Oderic waved his hand dismissively. ‘Back to the main matter at hand, Ladon: You need to stop bothering that poor woman!’ Just as Ladon was about to argue, which Oderic had learnt to gauge by the intensity of the lights in his eyes, he held up his hand instead. ‘Your weird little crusade against “ _ Bachmare _ ” or whatever is getting out of hand, Ladon. Azrarach lost his leg for it today. As Rogue Traders it is our duty to bring the Emperor’s light to the most distant reaches of the galaxy, not pretend at being Inquisitors!’

‘That’s what you came here to talk to me about?’ Ladon asked, forgetting how late it was.

‘No actually, I was heading back to my room from the cathedral.’

Ladon only continued to fume silently for a moment, then turned and began the walk back to his own quarters. He detected Oderic’s heavy footsteps behind him and halted in order to turn back to him.

‘What now?’

‘Well now I am worried about you,’ Oderic answered. Said worry amplified his weathered features twofold.

‘Do not be. But also do not think I am going to put aside my business with Bachmeyer. Even the Highlander can tell you the threat she poses to not only the Calixis Sector, but the galaxy as a whole.’

‘If the Highlander even remembers her. Note also that Bachmeyer is dead, and her remaining followers are all insane and divided amongst themselves.’

‘Oderic please, you of all people should understand the honour involved in completing a task like this.’

‘I also understand that not all things are so simple and clean when you see them from outside your own preconceptions. What I once thought was my own noble quest was but a daemon spirit toying with me.’

‘Oh but I’m aware that I'm being toyed with,’ Ladon replied. ‘That all goes into the equations.’

‘Yes, yes. You Tech-priests are always doing equations.’ Oderic sighed and reached up to lay a hand on Ladon’s shoulder. ‘Why not take a break at least? I’m sure the Highlander has some more suitable missions for us to perform.’

‘To what end, Oderic? I don’t need wealth or excitement, I want answers!’

Oderic sighed. ‘Do as you please, Ladon. I’m your friend, so I guess I’ll not abandon you. If only to make sure you don’t wake up an entire Tomb World.’

Ladon chuckled. ‘That’s all I really ask from you, isn’t it?’

Oderic gave a booming laugh as well, and returned his arm to his side. ‘If you really need something from Thrones, I’ll try talking to her when she’s feeling better. These things usually take a day to wash over.’

‘I understand.’

‘I’m a much better people-person than you,’ Oderic added, flicking Ladon’s steel forehead. Ladon batted him away and grumbled in binaric. Oderic laughed again before bidding Ladon a proper goodnight. 

‘Yes, enjoy your rest, Oderic.’

Barely stifling a yawn, Oderic waved as he walked past in the direction of his own chamber. Ladon went to brush down the front of his robe, feeling awfully dishevelled from all this, and discovered he still held Thrones’ dataslate. Curious despite what all courtesy might’ve called for, he looked over the contents of the screen.

‘Now where on Terra did she find this?’ he found himself asking aloud. Something called, Project Psy Warrior? No it, couldn’t be. How did Thrones have this? Ladon looked up to scan the corridor as that one animal part of his brain he’d never upgraded sent phantom shivers through him. He clutched the dataslate to his chest and moved with redoubled pace to his room and, once there, locked the door. He slid a crate of spare parts in front of it for good measure.

A distorted wail sounded from under Ladon’s bunk, followed by the appearance of… a thing.

‘Hush, Snuffles,’ Ladon hissed, trying to scoot the disfigured pooch back and out of sight.

‘B O R K.’

‘Later! I’m very busy.’ Ladon swept through his room, tearing through his stacks of notes and searching for other dataslates. He muttered constantly as he worked himself into a feverish pace. Snuffles merely watched apathetically as Ladon piled a stack of parchment on his desk while attempting to wire several dataslates up to an aging cogitator. When Ladon smashed his head into the desk hard enough to cause splinters, Snuffles suddenly retreated. 

Ladon returned to the cogitator with a brass censer in hand, stuffing incense inside and pausing, before realising he needed a flame so he searched for a match for some time. At last he found one, and lit several candles with it before tending to the censer. He sighed, something he was certain his vocal implants would soon detect as a default tone, and began a chant to appease the Machine Spirit of his cogitator.

‘I bear witness to the Directed Motion, / I bear judge to the Sentience, / I bear fealty to Comprehension…’

The cogitator sputtered to life with a loud whirring, and Ladon nearly dropped his censer in fright. Damned if mechanical nerves could ever become this frayed! He watched instead as his three year long hoarding of data began to stream together. Multiple frames of text appeared in sequence, often overlapping each other, until the screen was full and the whirring died down to a more acceptable murmur. Ladon slid the cogitator to the center of his desk and sat before it. His hands hovered over the input-grid while his interface port snaked up to a socket on the side of the device. Another prayer to the Omnissiah and at last everything was ready.

He cycled through the text frames to the original document he sought, one labeled ‘@*&^#@^^’s Legacy’. Before he opened the full file, he hesitated for a moment as a whimsy floated through his head. 

‘Maybe this time…’ He attempted to rename the file. O… C… T…

Rap… Tap… Tap…

The cogitator screen glitched violently and an electrical squeal assailed Ladon’s ears. He clenched his hands into fists and took a deep intake of air, held it, and let his body fall to ease. 

‘It’s fine,’ he told himself. ‘You don’t  _ need _ that.’ He began keying through the headings and sub-headings of the file until he found the keyword that matched what he found on Thrones’ dataslate.

_ Project Psi Warrior. _

‘She spelt it wrong,’ Ladon mused, quickly changing the ‘i’. He read and reread the brief entry listed under the title, and then backed out of the document to cycle towards the full file that had been recovered from Inquisitor Kantor’s personal databanks. Yes, even as he scrolled down he could see that Thrones’ own document contained, at least in part, identical information. Thrones’ copy was definitely edited down but he noted it was no censor but rather a condensation, as if whoever had transcribed the information had made an effort towards brevity and pertinence. Ladon spoke aloud into a vox-recorder as he delved into detail.

‘Alpha level psykers, yes I knew that. Memetic control… now that’s new. Oh, but this one’s been updated! Of course, they were still prototypes when I was with Kantor.’ Ladon reached the end of the documents, noting that Thrones’ copy remained text only and lacked the pict-captures from Kantor’s copy.

‘Now how did you get these, Thrones, and more importantly why?’ he asked as he leaned back. 

There was a knock on the door. Both Ladon and Snuffles spun to face the disturbance, the former drawing at least one weapon.

‘Who is it?’ Ladon called.

‘Breakfast!’ came the crisp tone of Azrarach Aazamindius. ‘Sorry it’s a little late! Still getting used to your handiwork, as it were!’

Ladon glanced at his chrono, wondering where all the hours had gone. He put the cogitator’s screen onto a blank frame and bid Azrarach to enter, knowing it would only insult the man if he didn’t at least pretend to graciously receive the homemade meal. The door hissed open and Azrarach began to speak, but a sudden crash followed by a series of lesser impacts made Ladon spin around again. Azrarach lay beside the crate blocking the doorway, with Ladon’s breakfast platter now decorating the floor.

‘I am so sorry,’ they said at once over each other.


	4. Chapter 4

#  IV.

Oderic was surprised to see Thrones arrive at the breakfast table that morning. Zayn evidently felt the same as he shared a curious look when Thrones took a seat next to him. Her own expression was hard to read due to the oversized shades she wore.

‘Good morning!’ Oderic said.

Thrones smiled back. ‘What’s for eating?’

‘Azrarach fried some sort of soy cake.’

She wrinkled her nose at that. ‘Any flavour to go with that?’

‘Come now, it’s not that bad!’

Thrones only stared at the plate Oderic pushed her way. ‘Your Tech-priest came asking questions last night,’ she said.

‘About the files we got off your old Inquisitor?’ Zayn asked.

‘More or less.’

‘What’d you tell him?’

Thrones scratched her head. ‘I told him to leave me alone. Wasn’t in the mood.’

Zayn sighed. ‘That’s not going to dissuade the bastard for long.’

Oderic laughed at that. ‘Ladon is a persistent fellow, I’ll give him that.’ His tone sombred as he leaned towards Thrones. ‘I’ve already told him to go easier on you.’

Thrones remained silent and decided to try the food. She bit gingerly into a piece she’d impaled on a fork and screwed up her face. 

‘So sour,’ she said before pulling off another piece and holding it to eye level. ‘It was kind of my fault, Oderic. Ladon was just trying to help.’

‘Oh I’m sure no one was really to blame for anything. Ladon simply needs to work on his bedside manner a little.’

‘I mean I completely shot him down for coming in to solve the problem I set up for him.’

‘He offered you a lobotomy didn’t he?’ Zayn interjected.

Thrones was about to argue, but silently conceded the point.

‘Actually,’ Oderic said, ‘I told him the opposite. It’s like we say on Avalonia; “ _ mieux vaut prévenir que guérir _ ” _. _ ’

‘You and your bloody Avalonian,’ Zayn muttered.

‘It means “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.’

‘So what?’ Thrones asked.

‘Well, let me say this: Ladon is off on a wild goose chase to try and earn your revenge against Bachmeyer. But he’s neglecting your wellbeing in doing so.’ 

‘My wellbeing comes second to stopping Bachmeyer.’ Thrones replied before she began to chew on her second piece of soy-cake.

‘See, that’s exactly what I mean! You’re so caught up in this past that you don’t realise how it's impacting your present.’

‘Oderic, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about,’ said Zayn. ‘If I’m not mistaken, I recall a time where you were prepared to kill yourself because you couldn’t uphold your end of a debt.’

Oderic opened his mouth and left it hanging for a moment before he closed it, making a small noise of frustration.

Zayn continued, ‘And who got you out of that? Ladon and I did. By doing what you were too afraid to do.’

‘Yes, he told you to kill that family.’

‘You don’t have to remind me what I did. I’ve always understood that in this Imperium, things simply must be done.’

Oderic lay his hands heavily on the table and stood, leaning forwards to Zayn. ‘You didn’t need to do anything, I prepared my own path! Aren’t you always banging on about how in your culture there’s no word for failure, only death?’

Thrones grabbed Zayn’s shoulder and pulled him back into his seat just as he began to rise to face Oderic. ‘Enough.’

Oderic cleared his throat and sat down again, smoothing out the front of his tunic. ‘I apologise.’

Zayn in turn gave Thrones a weak smile. ‘I guess the short of it is, Thrones, none of us really have any answers for you.’

Thrones pushed her plate away and stood. ‘Story of my life,’ she said as she stretched her arms. 

Oderic was cut off from his retort when a klaxon alarm sounded, followed by a vox broadcast alerting all crew members that the  _ Pride of Gladtonius _ was preparing for Warp travel.

‘I wonder where we’re off to now?’ Zayn wondered, starting again on his meal. He jumped as Ladon burst into the cafetarium.

‘Good news, everyone! I found a new lead!’

Thrones slapped Zayn on the back so he could cough up the food he’d swallowed down the wrong tube, all the while regarding Ladon with suspicion. ‘What do you have planned?’

+++

MAD-8627149 was an uninhabited planetoid that, even amongst the vastness of interstellar space in the Imperium, would’ve been considered incredibly isolated. Stepping out onto the colourless desert that made up its surface, Ladon had no misconceptions as to why it remained so. Lifeless, barren; uncaring and uncared for. If someone ever did arrive here, they did so with full knowledge of what such a position within the galaxy might yet offer. Yes, Ladon immediately recognised the mindset Bachmeyer followed as she set up the so-called ‘Daemon Trigger’ facility here. 

Azrarach had dropped their landing shuttle as close to the above-ground structures as possible, following a diversion caused by a raging fulminating dust storm. This time, Ladon thought it pertinent to leave him with the shuttle prepared for a hasty takeoff, lest another emergency escape be required. Replacing Azrarach on the ground would be Fifty Thrones, who had been to this facility once before a long time ago. She’d found no answers, but then again her old warband hadn’t included an insatiably curious Tech-priest fond of at least cataloguing, if not endorsing, all kinds of tech-heresies that Inquisitors like Kantor or Bachmeyer liked to commit.

While the three fleshbags bore respirators and protective garb to survive the storm, Ladon merely strolled forward without much care, paying more attention to the data he had at hand about this facility and others like it.

_ Project Daemon-Trigger: the breeding of humans with daemons. _ Despicable, but not entirely relevant. At least, not on its own.

_ Project Overmind: an attempt to create psychically enslaved super-soldiers. _ A failed project, but Thrones had been one of them and she believed Kantor’s betrayal had stemmed from his fears of her in that regard.

_ Project Psy-Warrior: an army of Alpha-level psychic warriors. _ Kantor’s own attempt at a similar product, and both Ladon and Thrones knew that Kantor and Bachmeyer’s works were heavily intertwined due to rival espionage between the two. Psy-Warrior may as well belong to both of them at this point, rivals though they were.

_ Project Ascension: based on collected data from all previous experiments - purpose unknown. _ Here then was the lock that barred the door to the secrets Ladon wanted. Of course he still needed the key. There were three options for leads, and Ladon had mathematically selected this to be the most efficient. Thrones’ homeworld had been converted into the testing grounds for Project Overmind, but had not only been passed in and out of the Warp but had then been raided and scoured clean by Bachmeyer’s forces. There was also Kantor’s Psy-Warrior facility, but Ladon saw infiltrating that as an impossibility, seeing as when he had last been there it had been attacked and Kantor had no doubt stepped up security tenfold. This left the Daemon-Trigger facility here. 

The wind whipped through the grey-yellow sky, curling towards a great nebulous thundercloud that funnelled down towards the facility. This was a squat, rockcrete bunker below which Thrones attested to there being a labyrinth of tunnels and test chambers. Presently she, Ladon, Oderic and Zayn lay or crouched amidst a craggy outcrop several hundred metres from the entrance

‘Yep, they’re still here,’ Thrones announced, her voice muffled by the mask she wore.

‘Who’s still here?’ Zayn hissed, pawing for the magnoculars she held. She relented and handed them off.

‘Kantor’s Heretek Skitarii,’ Ladon answered, utilising his built in functions to examine the robed cybernetic warriors roaming the perimeter of the facility. 

‘He took over the facility after we’d cleared it out,’ said Thrones. ‘Krowe wanted to launch an orbital bombardment.’

‘That’s when you know Krowe’s serious,’ Ladon muttered.

Zayn frowned as he examined the Skitarii. ‘Why’d he put them in black?’

‘Probably trying to pass them off as not his own,’ Ladon replied. ‘Stygies VIII, Agripinaa, Triplex Phall…’

‘You’re saying he expected others to find this place?’

‘Something’s wrong,’ Thrones muttered. ‘If Kantor wanted to hide something like this, he had a voidship that could move Warp storms. It's how he originally found this place.’

‘Ridiculous. The removal of a Warp storm is one thing, however unfeasible it is to be considered conventional amongst Imperial powers. Purposefully creating a new one is not just heresy, but madness,’ Ladon concluded.

‘Trust me, if you saw the things down there that I saw, you’d not be so quick to judge.’

‘I am fully aware of what Kantor is capable of.’

‘What’s the plan?’ Oderic asked.

Thrones tugged her long-las out of its sheath and began tinkering with the scope. Ladon tried to push it back towards her.

‘Wait, I might be able to bluff our way inside.’

Thrones raised an eyebrow. ‘You should these days have as much authority over Kantor’s soldiers as I do.’

Ladon cut her off with a sharp motion. ‘I am a capable fabricator of lies.’ 

Zayn clasped him on the shoulder. ‘It’s worth a shot, tinman. Oderic and I can move round that way,’ he pointed at a series of outcroppings much closer to the surface level, ‘so that we’re in range to charge if things go south and Thrones has to take a shot.’

‘Understandable.’

Zayn and Oderic started heading down when Ladon turned to Thrones. ‘Be more careful about mentioning my association with Kantor. Oderic and Zayn are not aware of their mind wipes and I consider it a danger if they were to experience trauma from a sudden recollection.’

Thrones nodded, but seemed more occupied with setting her sniper rifle on a bipod mount. As she aligned herself with the scope, she suddenly gasped, grabbing the hem of Ladon’s robe right as he started his descent.

‘What now?’ he asked her, openly irritated.

‘Those aren’t Skitarii. They’re Taken.’

‘Taken?’

Now it was Thrones’ turn to snap. ‘Didn’t you hear about them in Kantor’s files? They’re servants of the Tyrant Star who’ve been converted into brainwashed shadows.’

Ladon looked over the facility once more, paying closer attention to the soldiers. The black of their robes, now that Thrones mentioned it, certainly was no ordinary pigment. He cycled his visual spectrum and discovered that in thermal vision, the enemy bore no signatures.

‘How well are they able to track living things?’ Ladon asked, panning his vision over to where Oderic and Zayn were making their way towards the ambush point. Even as he asked, the Skitarii had started moving towards the pair. They took jittering, uneven steps, revealing that their limbs were of no steel but a sickly white glow. Instead of a Skitarii faceplate, there was a single glowing eye. Ladon activated his built in vox bead and hissed a warning to Oderic and Zayn.

Zayn lowered his finger from his ear and turned to Oderic, only to see three of the Skitarii, in perfect unison, raise their rifles and open fire. He dragged Oderic down as the rock exploded around them.

‘That’s not standard Mechanicus issue,’ he noted upon seeing the deep black scoring.

‘Do we engage?’ Oderic asked.

A crack from Thrones’ long-las prompted Zayn to nod, before the two of them charged out of cover, the knight going left and the psyker going right. The Skitarii still standing were cut down in an instant, though the two warriors were surprised that upon defeat the targets did not fall crumpled in a heap, but instead vanished in a vortex of strange light. By now, heavy automatic fire from Ladon had begun to rain upon the other enemy spectres, so the two warriors charged once more.

‘Secure us a way inside the door!’ Ladon voxed. With a silent signal, Zayn ordered Oderic to march for the door while he raced for a large group of Skitarii attempting to fire upon Ladon and Thrones. Again, the Skitarii moved in eerie synchronicity as four of them turned to face Zayn. Zayn leapt forwards as their fire screamed through the air around him. Once his toes had hit the ground before them, it was practically already over. He twisted his upper torso with dual swords splayed outwards, severing limbs and necks with no compunction. The Skitarii scattered into darkness. 

‘Not a drop of blood in ‘em,’ Zayn muttered, already eyeing up his next target. A lone Skitarius raised a phosphor blast pistol and Zayn stepped sideways as it fired. Instead of the shot missing his chest, there was a flicker, like a poor quality hololith, and it was as if an afterimage of the Skitarius appeared on each side of it, firing mimicked pistols. Furthermore, it was no ordinary luminagen round. Three orbs of silver light flew through the air, one of them hitting Zayn in the arm and burrowing through his flak armour. His eyes widened in shock as an icy grip seemed to strangle his limb and his hand went abnormally numb. He heard his sword clatter to the ground as his fingers fell slack, and realised he still had to fight. He stepped towards the Skitarius and swung his other blade on an angle, anticipating where the afterimages would appear. Sure enough there were, for an instant, three foes before him and though the sword passed harmlessly through one of the mimics, once it tore through the chest of the host, there was nothing but a passing swirl of darkness. He heard movement behind him and dropped to a crouch as he turned, but this time saw a red-robed cyborg.

‘You are injured,’ Ladon said.

‘My arm feels like it's damn frozen.’

Ladon knelt next to Zayn and took his arm into his hands. ‘Simple hypothermic shock from a cryogenic attack,’ he explained, injecting a dose of stimm into the top of Zayn’s shoulder while spraying the wound with a disinfectant and applying a patch. ‘Can you move your fingers?’

‘No,’ Zayn said, until he looked down and saw his hand was moving normally. ‘Emperor’s teeth, that’s weird.’

‘Nerves have gone numb from the cold. Allow me.’ Ladon parted his robe and held Zayn’s arm against the portion of his abdomen which contained a luminen capacitor, which he set to full charge in order to generate as much heat as he could. 

There was a shout across from them and they looked up to see Oderic cleave through one Skitarius and then parry a clumsy swipe from another before stoving its head in with the pommel of his warblade. A third came up behind him and slung its arms under his in an attempt to grapple him, but a crimson bolt of light drilled through its glowing eye. It exploded into wispy shards of black smoke and light. 

Thrones said to them via vox, ‘All clear.’

She made her way down the crag the same way Ladon did, albeit with infinitely more finesse and agility.

‘You got hit?’ she asked Zayn.

‘Bastard pulled a trick on me. What in the Warp were those?’

‘Taken,’ Thrones said once more. ‘The Tyrant Star transformed ordinary servants of the Emperor into these… things. Actually I think there were Xenos too.’

‘Daemons,’ said Oderic.

‘No, not that,’ said Zayn. ‘They didn’t have a Warp signature anything like a daemon’s. Or mortals for that matter.’

‘That’s what Lark always said,’ Thrones replied. ‘Something about a static?’

Zayn frowned. ‘Yeah… yeah I can feel that now. It’s deeper in the facility. I was never as in tune with the Warp as Lark.’ He smiled fondly at memories of the psyker he once knew when he was just a mercenary. To think Lark had then run into working with Thrones and Kantor. Maybe the Calixis sector wasn’t as big as he’d thought. He was startled from this reverie when Ladon’s luminen capacitor got too close.

‘Careful!’

‘Sensation restored,’ Ladon replied, more as a note to himself. He stood away from Zayn, who sat clenching and unclenching his fist.

‘Last time we were here,’ Thrones began, examining the ceramite slabs that made up the doors, ‘there was only one Taken. A daemon prince who’d been one of the experiments that Bachmeyer had here. But apart from that there were only, uh, flaming hedgehogs.’

‘Did Ladon spike me with that stimm, or did she just say  _ hedgehogs _ ?’ Zayn asked Oderic. Oderic shrugged.

‘Oh and a Bloodthirster, but they didn’t stick around. And some weird floating skeleton hands.’

‘Which is precisely why I chose to visit this location,’ Ladon explained. ‘I found reference to that in the Kantor files.’

Thrones turned to him. ‘He was there at Cazador as well. We defeated him before that weird heretek…’

‘Lexi.’

‘Yeah, Lexi. She came and ate him.’

‘No, she ate the soul of a Yu’vath god that he had previously stolen from her.’ Ladon began walking towards the door of the facility. ‘But this? A clue to the end product of this grand conspiracy. And I believe I’m one step closer from just having stepped on this planet.’ 

He slid open an access panel and began to interface with it, talking with his natural voice over his vox’s binaric chanting. ‘The Man Who Speaks in Hands was just a warlord who fought against the Yu’vath before the Angevin crusade. His link to the Tyrant Star is tangential. Unless you consider this power of the Taken.’

‘But what does that have to do with Bachmeyer?’

‘Brainwashed shadows that don’t have a signature in the Warp, but rather create a static? If I were to breed my own race of perfect warriors, that’s where I would move. Maybe Bachmeyer realised that psykers were inherently unstable, we all knew Lark after all,’ he allowed himself a chuckle at that, ‘and Kantor’s only after a weapon. According to his test run he’s damned near finished. Bachmeyer meanwhile, has so far written off every experiment she’s had as a failure. If I were her, this Taken ability is where I would turn. Protecting what we learnt about the Tyrant Star from Bachmeyer’s forces was a major reason why I backed up my memory in the first place. So maybe...’ The door suddenly hissed and slid open to a yawning tunnel of darkness.

‘Ladon you’re babbling like a madman about Bachmeyer again,’ Oderic sighed. 

Ladon froze, then turned slowly to face the rest of the party. He should not have been talking for so long while distracted like that. He tried to send Thrones a meaningful look, but the metal mask of his implants rendered expression impossible.

‘Oderic, leave the bastard alone. He just wants to help Thrones find out who she really is, and why Kantor felt he had to get rid of her,’ Zayn growled. ‘Honestly I find this way more fun than sitting on my ass in some gilded hall aboard the  _ Pride _ .’

‘Right, right. I forgot how important using your swords are to your people.’

Ladon was glad he didn’t have sweat glands anymore. He activated his vox once more to signal Azrarach that it was all clear for him to move in closer for a more immediate pickup on their way out.

‘Let’s get moving,’ he announced to the others, as he stepped into the elevator carriage before him.

+++

Deep in the belly of the planet itself, Ladon had to activate his stablight in order to illuminate the dusty, tenebrous entrance of Bachmeyer’s facility.

‘It's even worse than when I was last here,’ Thrones commented, wiping her finger over the surface of a receptionist’s desk.

‘And the static is definitely louder,’ Zayn added.

Ladon ensured his memorance implant was fully recording. ‘Thrones, lead the way.’

Thrones was staring at the floor. ‘There are trails here, from all those months ago judging by the dust. Kantor’s Skitarii. But the Taken can teleport, so they could be anywhere in here.’

‘Noted,’ Ladon replied. ‘Please lead us to the location where you found the Bachmeyer clone that was initially recovered.’

‘Wait, a  _ clone _ ?’ Zayn asked.

‘Replicae if you don’t wish to use layman’s terms,’ Ladon replied nonchalantly.

‘Was it… alive?’

‘A Bloodthirster killed it,’ said Thrones.

‘Did you not read any of Kantor’s files? I paid a lot to acquire them for us,’ Ladon groused.

‘Well that’s your fault for dealing with Waltoph. He’s a crook. There is no such thing as an Avatar of Merchants,’ Oderic replied. ‘And I didn’t read the files either, I thought they were private for Thrones.’

‘I read some of them and they honestly just felt like bad fan fiction or melodrama play. Something a noble would dream up in his spire and write down for his servants to recreate,’ said Zayn. ‘Though I can certainly see why you thought they were private.’

Thrones blushed furiously.

Ladon raised his voice, saying, ‘Well this is why you haven’t been taking this as seriously as I have, Oderic!’

Oderic bowed his head. ‘I’m sorry, my friend. I thought you were either insane or hiding something from me, but I was just ignorant.’

Ladon’s demeanour softened immediately, a rare occurrence for the Tech-priest. ‘Bygones are bygones. We should keep moving.’ He moved forward to try the door, pleased to see it was unlocked. ‘The Omnissiah blesses us,’ he proclaimed, keying for it to open.

‘Oh hey nice way to jinx things, cogboy,’ Zayn said, clutching the side of his head even as he examined the strange, colourless barrier that lay in the doorway. The corridor beyond was visible beyond as if viewed through a glass of water or a funhouse mirror. It shimmered and distorted into an uncanny parody; what little was visible in the darkness, at least. Ladon’s light refused to shine much through the barrier at all.

‘That’s definitely new,’ said Thrones, placing her hands on cocked hips.

Ladon removed a single round from one of his storm bolter magazines and tossed it through the barrier. It never appeared on the other side, nor did any sound of impact reach his ears.

‘Portal or kill wall?’ he asked no one in particular, and then passed one of his lesser mechadendrites through the barrier. He wiggled around, and then retracted it, seeing it remained fully intact. Next he sent his optical mechadendrite through, temporarily plunging the room into darkness through the absence of his stablight. 

‘Oh…’ he cooed. ‘Very interesting. Zayn, you’re sure this is not a Warp phenomena, no?’

‘I am,’ 

Ladon continued, ‘Well it's definitely not the same facility as on this side. Readings indicate it’s entirely inhabitable to humans, though.’

‘Wait,’ Thrones frowned, ‘what exactly do you see?’

‘A dark, muted corridor filled with strange orbs. It’s in ruins, though, with gaps in the floor suspended over a bottomless void, and an alien light beaming through gaps in the ceiling and walls.’

‘Is there… a tower?’

‘I can’t see very far. There’s another door: maybe 15 metres?’

‘A similar thing happened on Atrai when the Tyrant Star attacked there. It’s something to do with the Taken alright.’

‘Is it safe? Otherwise we already have to turn back.’

‘Yes,’ said Thrones. ‘Or at least, the realm itself isn’t hostile. But they have… I guess “champions” in there. One of them almost killed… almost killed Syra.’

Ladon nodded. ‘We will be a little more careful.’ He was surprised to see Thrones brush past him and enter the portal first. He watched her through his mechadendrite as she looked around briefly, then drew a pair of hot-shot laspistols from her belt and approached the other door. He withdrew the mechadendrite to once again shine light upon the room he and the other Rogue Traders stood in. 

‘You ready?’ he asked.

Oderic nodded while Zayn went through the portal next. As Oderic approached, Ladon could tell he was about to apologise again, so he just shook his head and gave a blank stare.

‘Oh!’ he said. ‘I’m trying to smile…’ he touched the respiratory tubes on his face. ‘I must refine some of my automatic responses…’

Oderic slapped him hard on the back and passed through, laughing heartily to himself.

The other facility was, as Zayn appropriately dubbed it, some sort of shadow realm. 

‘It’s not the Eldar Webway, is it?’ Ladon asked Thrones.

‘No,’ she replied, frowning as she tried to think of some further answer. 

‘The interference is still in my head,’ Zayn noted. ‘It’s  _ quieter _ , but it's like there’s more of it. Does that make sense?’

‘Nothing you psykers do makes sense,’ Thrones sighed.

‘It’s as if before I was hearing the waves crashing on the shore, but now I’m submerged. It's calmer, but there’s no reprieve at all from what I’m feeling.’

Ladon was content to let Zayn have his little metaphors, and instead marched toward the next door with his utility mechadendrite snaking out in anticipation to access the control panel, only to stop dead in his tracks when the door slid open at his approach. Thrones was suddenly at his side.

‘Originally, we got separated on our way in and circled all the way round, so this time we just want to go-’ she stared in confusion at what she remembered as just an ordinary antechamber. Now, cast in a pale off-green light that only made each shadow seem darker, there was a statue of an Imperial Saint in the middle of a swirling vortex. Shards of rockcrete debris - which might once have been the walls, floor or ceiling that Thrones remembered - hovered around the brass figure to form a crude spiral staircase. Far above, these led to a winding path of floating boulders each the size of battle tanks. Thunder crashed around them, carried from distant clouds by winds that howled in an eldritch tongue. Ladon threw his arm out to bring Thrones back as a large, crystalline meteor sailed past them.

This was not a realm meant for mortal feet. This was the realm one treads in only their nightmares.


	5. Chapter 5

Thrones slipped under Ladon’s arm and leapt across to another rockcrete platform, easily making the jump. 

‘It’s weirdly stable,’ Thrones called back.

‘I’m glad you found that out safely,’ Ladon replied sarcastically. He turned as Oderic and Zayn approached. The latter peered curiously off the small ledge they were perched upon.

‘It appears we’ve been a bit shafted,’ he said, then raised his head to follow Thrones, who was already up on another piece of rockcrete. ‘Someone’s eager.’

‘Did we bring any grapnel lines?’ Oderic asked. Ladon handed him his model, erstwhile activating his maglev coils to hover half a meter above the ground. Zayn started clambering after Thrones as Oderic fired the gas-powered pistol at the closest boulder and began the automatic winch function. He swung over the empty abyss for a moment, suddenly realising he had no idea if normal physics worked in this dimension, and then steadied out beneath the boulder, rising at a snail’s pace. Zayn and Thrones reached the top of the supposed ‘staircase’ far before the others and stopped to rest before crossing the boulder path. Ladon meanwhile had paused halfway up as he regarded the Imperial Saint’s face.

‘It’s Leasah,’ he mused, recognising the dour expression of the former Astropath who’d served aboard the _Pride of Gladtonius_. Though he’d never met her personally, the name held significance towards the various Psy-Warrior projects. As an Alpha-level psyker, Kantor had sought after and subsequently successfully acquired her DNA as part of the vat-breeding program he’d created. Leasah had fought in the Koronus Crusade against the Yu’vath alongside Lexi and the Highlander as well. An auspicious sign that her visage would appear in this nightmare, then. Ladon recorded a memo to ask the Highlander what had happened to her in more recent times, and then resumed his levitation.

When he reached the others, he scanned the path of boulders. These seemed much less stable as they were not only much more roughly hewn, resembling natural counterparts as opposed to the clearly artificed debris platforms, but some of them rotated slowly on their horizontal axis. At the far end stood an empty steel doorway, but much closer was a hovering orb of pale light that pulsed and wavered erratically.

‘What is that?’ Ladon asked Thrones.

Her forehead furrowed as she tried to remember. ‘It's some sort of spirit, I think. Claimed he was a Tech-priest last time I encountered him.’

‘Interesting. Perhaps if this were not a strange land of witchcraft I might’ve believed he’d become one with the Motive Force. As it stands, however, I’m not sure I can truly empathise.’

‘We don’t really have a way around him,’ Oderic noted. ‘Was he benevolent last time you met, Thrones?’

‘Hmm well, he didn’t actually cause us harm. But he wasn’t quite willing to freely help, either. Syra had to strike a deal with him in order to leave this plane.’

‘What is it with Kantor’s minions and forming daemon pacts?’ Zayn chuckled morosely. ‘Not that that thing is a daemon, by the way.’

Ladon grunted in assent, and began hovering over the small gaps between the boulders, ever on the lookout for more of those crystal meteors which continued to roar through the abyss. As he approached the orb, it started to move, whirling back and forth about a metre at a time from where it initially floated. At the same time, he heard its cocksure yet sagely voice echo in his head.

‘Another adept of the Machine Spirit’s teachings! Have you come here to learn the true method of Comprehension?’

‘I’m not entirely sure,’ Ladon replied honestly. ‘I did not intend to find this… place.’

‘The Ascendant Realm. The nightmare Throne Worlds of those who have shed their mortal limits.’

‘Not daemons?’

‘Were the Gods of the Eldar daemons? What of the star vampires who came to the ancient Necrontyr? My friend, what the Imperium calls an evil out of time is but an infant compared to the true shapes of the primordial universe.’

Ladon cocked his head. ‘Avatars?’

‘Ah, you _are_ on the path to the truth. You surely have been granted eyes, already. But still quite beastly. What do you call yourself?’

‘Tech-priest Ladon 47490-5. And you are?’

‘Consider me your Virgil, as I guide you through this lightless inferno.’ There was a sudden screech as the orb shot towards the distant door frame, hovering and twitching silently above it.

‘Yeah, that’s about what he was like with my team,’ said Thrones. ‘I paid him no mind. Might’ve called him a heretic.’

‘I cannot blame you. Anyone with a mere gram more puritanical sense than you would’ve already tried to lance this planet.’

Thrones screwed up her face in protest. ‘I don’t like those labels the Inquisition try and justify everything with.’

‘Although I’d agree that I am entirely a radical,’ Ladon pointed out, ‘I understand that it's only in relation to what the Imperium has as an aggregate value. Anyone without a tolerance for hearing things outside the dogma would’ve had a fit thus far.’

‘I’d have been shot for disagreeing about this place’s relationship with the warp,’ Zayn chimed in. ‘I mean, saying that it isn’t what an Inquisitor would just screech “ _Witchcraft!”_ at.’

‘What about you, Oderic?’ Ladon asked. ‘Is this place too untasteful for you to continue?’

Oderic was looking awfully gloomy as he gazed into the middle distance by his feet. Ladon repeated his name, and he slowly raised his head. ‘What my people considered fae spirits were revealed to be daemons in disguise. Even our psykers were deceived. Zayn, I wouldn’t trust my senses if I were you. I think the sooner we escape, the better. Chaos has many ways of seducing people. Whether it lays all bare or dolls itself like a whore in a flesh bar, the result is the same.’

The argument gave Ladon pause, but Thrones suddenly spoke up. ‘I don’t care where it's from, but I agree with Oderic; it can’t be trusted.’

Ladon kept his various disagreements to himself. Now was not the time for curiosity to kill the group dynamics. However, he did explain that this was, most likely, the only way forward. Even Oderic conceded this, and that perhaps knowing of a potential trap was half the battle against its threat.

They made slow progress over the precarious boulders, choosing to take safety over haste. Ladon’s sensors refused to provide any tangible information as to the depth of that abyss below them, which spiralled into a maw of sickly light. The noise of thunder grew louder as they approached the door frame, and beyond it they could see wicked eldritch lightning flickering through dusty shadows that appeared to form a wall at the edge of the empty expanse. The so-called Virgil began to enter his excited state of movement as they stood below him.

‘How much is wasted on ritual and prayer, in this galaxy? True strength comes from the act and the change it brings.’

‘Ironic from one speaking in riddles,’ said Oderic. ‘Speak straight.’

‘A straight edge. The shape of a sword. This is the final shape we are heading for, if we have the strength for it. Weakness will only hold us back.’

‘That sounds like something Kantor or Bachmeyer would say to justify their experiments,’ Thrones growled.

Virgil gave a drawn out laugh. ‘Inquisitors only in name, both alike in dignity.’

‘Or lack of.’

Virgil continued, ‘What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this starry void? Son of man, you cannot say, or guess, for you know only a heap of broken images, where alien suns beat, and the dead trees give no shelter, the fauna no relief, and the dry stone no sound of water. There is shadow under this sharp shape, come in under the shadow of this sharp shape, and I will show you something different from either your shadow at morning striding behind you or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust.’ Then with another echoing screech, Virgil’s light vanished. 

A reflective glow materialised inside the doorway, revealing a distorted image of another facility chamber within. Ladon moved forward to probe the portal’s depths as he had before, and once satisfied he stepped through wordlessly.

He emerged into a mist-filled room he recognised as similar in function to a weapon’s testing chamber common in many Imperial facilities. He tried to waft the mist away to create some sort of visibility, and was greeted by the sight of spiders growing like flowers out of cracks in the floor. Already perturbed, Ladon nevertheless spun up his augur array and performed an infrared sweep of the room right as the others joined him. Oderic made to speak, when Ladon held up a fist, and slowly pointed to the center of the room. While the others had to strain their ears, Ladon had already isolated the audio of low, breathing. Everyone drew weapons, and Zayn was the one to start advancing. Three steps ahead of the party, and suddenly the mist parted before him, revealing more of the crooked floor sprouting unholy flowers. More unsettling was the human figure crouched in the exact centre of the room. They were made of shadows and pale light like the Taken Skitarii outside, but this man seemed to have originally been clad not in Mechanicus robes, but a leather jacket. His head spun on his neck at an excruciatingly slow pace, revealing that although it still bore a fohawk haircut. Behind his sunglasses was a single white eye, covering any other facial features with its sickly glow.

Ladon started, and then adjusted his optics for a closer examination. ‘Johnny? Johnny!’

The Taken stood slowly, chittering to himself as he did. ‘Yesss, Throne Agent?’

‘Are you alright?’ Ladon asked. He made to step forward to inspect the old ally, but Thrones swung her arm in front of him even as Johnny mockingly replied.

‘No, Throne Agent.’

Ladon was still running calculations as he regarded Johnny Giovanni, former leader of the Zelkariun Tunnel Grox gang, and one of the contacts he’d formed in the early days of his jaunt within Kantor’s Inquisition. No. He rerouted his thought patterns to push those memories away, loading a pre-compiled combat script. Enemy: Engage.

‘Then be purged...’ Ladon growled as he lifted his storm bolter.

Johnny gave a high pitched cackle and raised his arm to disappear into a shroud of darkness. Hollow screeches filled the room as three orbs of roiling negative light formed around the chamber. Shades that took the form of Skitarii and Imperial Guardsmen spilled from the pools of corruption that lay underneath the orbs. 

Zayn, still in the lead, charged at the squad of Skitarii by the farthest wall, while Oderic ran for the Guardsmen that were hardly five metres beside.

‘Keep an eye on their tricks,’ Zayn reminded him, successfully avoiding a three-pronged volley of radium carbine fire. Oderic flicked his gaze over to Zayn’s foes, and then settled on his own. The Guardsmen raised their weapons in unison and fired. He twisted and weaved as he charged, waiting for the triplicate mirage attacks. By the time he crashed into the squad, no such thing had occurred and now he was suspicious. He pulled his blow at the last instant so as to not to overcommit, turning what would’ve been a devastating charge into a glancing blow. The Guardsman beneath his blade certainly staggered, falling down heavily injured, but Oderic caught the flickering motion around him as the other Guardsmen seemingly cloned themselves. Now, he was surrounded.

‘ _Dieu et mon droit_!’ he cried, powering up his warblade so that the jagged adamantium teeth, additionally sheathed in an archaeotech power field, spun at maximum velocity. He spread his feet and shifted his weight from one extremity to the other, throwing himself entirely into the swing with the knowledge that he would otherwise be unable to defend himself from every angle like this. In a massive arc, his blade flew through the stomachs and necks of a dozen Guardsman shadows around him. Against ordinary foes Oderic would’ve been coated in a fountain of blood, but as he recovered from his momentum he merely watched their shadows implode into the same sickly light as the previous enemies.

Heavy weapons fire sounding over his head made him instinctively duck, only to realise that Ladon was firing his heavy stubber into the orb before him. The light within it grew in intensity before it ruptured with a soft scream, the vortex lifting away the corruption on the ground as well. Oderic turned to see that Ladon had also destroyed the orb that Zayn had cleared, and was now firing on Thrones’ position while she tore apart her targets with a flurry of precision blows from her dual pistols. 

When every one of the orbs was shattered, Johnny reappeared from a portal that split through the middle of the air. He was monstrously tall now, covered in bony plates of armour that glittered like the night sky. 

‘Join me!’ the creature hissed, ‘And be bound to Malice!’

Thrones and Ladon replied with combined fire while Oderic charged the beast head on and Zayn weaved around to flank him. Johnny kicked at Oderic, sending him flying to the floor, and then fired some sort of eldritch blast between Ladon and Thrones. The latter, whose agility far exceeded the weighty Tech-priest, was able to slide aside and avoid the explosive. Ladon merely raised an arm to protect his head while the strange energy coursed over him, charring his robes and melting through some of the surface plating of his cybernetic frame.

Zayn meanwhile had slashed open Johnny’s hamstring and was currently in an attempt to use his other blade as a climbing axe. Johnny, on one knee now, tried to reach over his shoulder to crush Zayn’s head, but the wiley swordsman swung away, landing with catlike grace out of reach. Johnny turned around, only for Oderic to slam his blade home through Johnny’s stomach, holding down the power lever so that the blade’s chain dug inwards even as Oderic struggled against Johnny’s palm pushing against his face. 

Johnny’s claws dug into Oderic’s head, leaving bloody gashes through his hair. Thrones took a moment to exhale and turned her body into the shot, lining her iron sights up with targeting arrays in her eyes, and squeezed the trigger. There was a brief flash of light where the las-bolt impacted with the luminous orb in his head and he roared, releasing Oderic and falling back as he reeled in pain. His crippled leg failed to sustain his weight and he slammed into the ground, swinging his arm at anything that was in range. Unfortunately this was Zayn, moving in for a finishing blow and though the impact knocked the wind out of his lungs, Zayn managed to impale a sword through Johnny’s arm. He clung on as Johnny raised him, then released it to drop onto Johnny’s head and drive his other sword through his eye.

Johnny seemed to collapse into himself with a final screech, the eye-wound becoming a singularity until the shade vanished in an explosion of light that also cleared the room’s eerie mist. Zayn and both of his swords fell to the ground, but he was luckily protected by his flak armour and chose to lay down in order to catch his breath. Ladon moved towards Oderic, who tried to waved him off on account of him only having a flesh wound. Ladon restrained him and began administering disinfectant, followed by a field suture delivered by a blindingly fast mechanical arm. Oderic barely registered the pain by the time Ladon had sealed up the tears in his scalp, and then got injected with stimm for good measure.

‘Do not argue with your chirurgeon. I know best,’ Ladon insisted.

‘Yes, yes. Thank you.’

Ladon tilted his chin up in his approximation of smugness, and then turned to find Thrones. She had just finished replenishing the power packs for her weapons as Ladon approached her.

‘Through there,’ she said, indicating the far door with her head. ‘That’s where the stasis pod and cogitator were.’

‘How many of these things have you fought?’

‘Originally there was Kalor, here. Then some of us fought what I think their Prince on Atrai, followed afterwards by what Lark referred to as The Judge.’

‘Kolchenko?’ Ladon asked.

‘Dunno,’ Thrones continued, missing the intensity with which Ladon asked. ‘Then there were a bunch of warriors like these Skitarii and Guardsmen on another world we visited to meet up with Alucarnia…’

‘Alucarnia was still in contact with Kantor?’

‘As a field agent, yeah, but not part of Krowe’s warband. She got Taken though, and then… well that was a grox’s breakfast of a mission.’

‘Ah of course the… Lieberstein incident.’

Thrones nodded grimly. ‘Well yeah, and there was one other that Chey the Third had a unique reaction to, and ended up with his weapon. Uh… Valen something?’

‘Itros? An Imperial Guardsman?’

‘No clue.’

Ladon logged that away, remembering the temporary comrade he’d had on Melthior Aquilius VII, right before the Tyrant Star had first assaulted the natural timeline. Presently, he cast his eyes over the battlefield. ‘Curious. There appear to be no remains of the Taken entities, including weapons. Although, there were those anomalous orbs in the Ascendant Realm. Perhaps I should extract samples on the way back.’

‘I don’t think you should touch any of it.’

‘My auspex has already reported many instances of sterile neutrino particles,’ Ladon rattled on. ‘Quite fascinating. Dark matter and such was believed lost in the Dark Age of Technology. Yet here it was all along under our noses in another realm. Perhaps pre-Imperial civilisations suffered from corruption of such? Or perhaps they somehow created the Tyrant Star, akin to a Chaos God built out of a physics model rather than a psyche. Would that make the Tyrant Star a type of anti-C’tan? Maybe I should ask-’ He cut himself off and looked up at Thrones, who was glaring at him partially slack-jawed. 

‘I can’t tell if you’re more like Chey or Eletsky,’ she sighed. ‘Go find a cogitator to jack into, you nerd.’

Ladon rearranged his robes in a huff and started off for the prize of this raid. Just as he passed Thrones, however, she asked a question that caused him another panicked freeze.

‘Jeez, what’s your arm made of? Your robe’s torched but the metal’s fine.’

‘Archaeotech,’ Ladon said hastily, and kept walking at an advanced pace. Thrones shrugged and left him to his own devices. 

Once in the rear room, Ladon tugged off part of his robe to inspect the damage to his body. Besides his left arm, as was a tradition amongst the Tech-priest ranks, the mere fragments of flesh around his neck, gut, and forehead remaining were mere token gestures. There simply hadn’t been an exact replacement. Everything else, from his limbs and major organs to the mechadendrites on his back, were steel.

But this was a lie.

Deep in his chest lay a Necron phylactery, an extremely rare xenotech device that created necrodermis scarabs programmed for self-repair protocols. On a Necron Lord, these were a symbiotic supplement that bolstered the existing regenerative properties of their living metal bodies. On Ladon, they were a parasite. Even if they made his body functionally indestructible, he worried what they did to his soul. Lexi, although maybe a hypocrite in the matter of technology and corruption, had already warned him of an ill fate. Ladon was acutely fearful as well that if this status ever leaked then he would become a pariah in the wider Imperium, even when compared to the fellow hereteks and radicals that made their homes on the _Pride of Gladtonius_ alongside xenos mercenaries. While fascinated by, perhaps even admiring, Necron technology, Ladon still knew that the xenos themselves were nothing but murderous sentient machines. 

‘Omnissiah guide me. My life is your directed motion. By the machines that surround my sentience: protect my spirit, which is the spark of my life…’ Ladon prayed, sliding his robe back on. 

He sighed, and scanned the room for what he wanted. He noted there was a large power conduit port in the wall attached to nothing, and recalled the recovery of a stasis pod containing Bachmeyer’s clone which had been possessed by a Bloodthirster. There was a cogitator, too, which was scrapped. Krowe had been thorough when she’d prevented Bachmeyer’s full set of data from reaching Kantor. Except of course, that the Death Cultist Syra had gone behind her back and provided the full copy through a separate transaction. Ladon wasn’t sure how he felt about that. For one thing, he and Krowe had been in agreement for the most part over how safe it was to trust Kantor. On the other hand, Syra owed Krowe no loyalty beyond what Kantor himself had ordered. Ladon decided he found that mercenary attitude rather distasteful. Especially considering how Syra had later double-crossed Kantor by delivering Thrones to him alive, albeit bleeding out from a carefully designed ‘fatal’ injury, following the battle of Cazador. 

But Ladon hadn’t come for something Thrones already had, since Krowe had shared the info with her. No, he was here for the Taken. According to his suspicions, it would make sense that since the Man Who Speaks in Hands had a presence here before Kantor seized the facility, he might’ve had one afterwards. Cazador happened far after the initial raid on this facility, so the corruption could’ve easily had time to spread then. Kantor likely lost interest after receiving the data from Syra anyway, and whatever force he’d stationed here had likely been half-arsed and forgotten. So what Ladon was looking for, especially knowing who had apparently led the garrison here, was the journal of Johnny Giovanni. Hopefully it hadn’t been turned into a shade like the rest of him but… no! Here it was!

Ladon drew out his interface port and plugged in, beckoning the dataslate’s Machine Spirit forward with binaric prayer. The device flashed on and Ladon scrolled through the text, looking for specific entries of particular noteworthiness. 

> **REPORT LOG:** 846>3
> 
> **REPORTING OFFICER:** Johnny Giovanni (Tunnel Grox Rule!)
> 
> Yo whatup bossman. It’s me, Johnny Giovanni. Nother broadcast to letcha know that literally nothing is happening here. Man these skittlari suck maaaaan. They never wanna talk to me! 
> 
> Yeah nah but we didn’t find any more hedgehogs. Soz

> **REPORT LOG:** 846>8
> 
> **REPORTING OFFICER:** Johnny Giovanni (Tunnel Grox Rule!)
> 
> Hey, you said to say something if there was Warpy stuff huh? Well I think i found some. One of your little dudes with crystals, the wizard ones, started complaining that everything was too loud all the time. Pretty skitz if you’re asking me.

> **REPORT LOG:** 847>2
> 
> **REPORTING OFFICER:** Johnny Giovanni (Tunnel Grox Rule!)
> 
> Yo uh, boss man? Haven’t heard from you in a while. Supply ship ain’t here and we’re running out of lho sticks.

> **REPORT LOG:** 847>4
> 
> **REPORTING OFFICER:** Johnny Giovanni (Tunnel Grox Rule!)
> 
> Some of the guards got into a turf war today, started wearing different coloured jackets. Man its like the Vagos vs Tunnel Grox crusade all over again. I personally think the black leather robes are cooler, but the red men said I’d better stay out of it.

> **REPORT LOG:** 847>7
> 
> **REPORTING OFFICER:** Johnny Giovanni (Tunnel Grox Rule!)
> 
> Yooooo dude there was some fucking skeleton here man! Grabbed a pair of skitarrs and just took them right away.

> **REPORT LOG:** 847>7.1
> 
> **REPORTING OFFICER:** J G
> 
> Nah nvm they came back in black robes.

> **REPORT LOG:** 849>1
> 
> **REPORTING OFFICER:** Johnny Giovanni
> 
> I’m scared. Nah man I think i might lock myself in the backroom. I found like some sort of teleporter that put me in an obscura trip. Real freaky shit. The black robed skitarii have won most of the war now, i think i’m gonna switch sides. Even tho I’m p sure they’re the ones on obscura. Or at least, they keep going in the teleporter to get high or smth. Fuckin druggos.

> **REPORT LOG:** 849>5
> 
> **REPORTING OFFICER:** Johnny Giovanni (Tunnel Grox Rule!)
> 
> [DATA CORRUPTED]

> **REPORT LOG:** 849>7
> 
> **REPORTING OFFICER:** [DATA CORRUPTED]
> 
> You are Johnny Giovanni, ruler of the Tunnel Grox. Face of a hundred thugs. Fixer, talker, killer. Once you ruled the Underhives of Zelkariun, but you chose to serve another Master when your life was threatened.
> 
> You have been Taken.
> 
> Your strength had been stolen by those that named themselves your betters. Now you will take it back.
> 
> Become a true ruler over forces unimaginable. You will never be alone and weak again.
> 
> So call forth the horde, and cut at the ankles of the mighty.
> 
> There is a sword for you. It is shaped like [tyranny].
> 
> Wield your new sword. Accept the changing blade. Take up your new shape.

Before he could properly comprehend this in real time, Ladon nearly dropped the dataslate when static pierced the screen and a distorted face appeared briefly, then settled into a communication program.

> ?????: Hey :)
> 
> Johnny Giovanni: Is this the clue you wanted me to find?
> 
> ?????: Getting closer, that’s for sure.
> 
> ?????: What is that name?
> 
> Johnny Giovanni: Dead man. Taken.
> 
> ?????: Aha.
> 
> Johnny Giovanni: What happened to the Man Who Speaks in Hands?
> 
> ?????: I didn’t do anything. Syra proved she was stronger than him.
> 
> ?????: Maybe he hid his death? Who knows.
> 
> ?????: Maybe ask her. Or Chey. The other one. 
> 
> ?????: The weird one ;)
> 
> Johnny Giovanni: And where would I find them?
> 
> ?????: Good question, but...
> 
> ?????: You’ve got bigger problems. And by that I mean I have problems, and you’re gonna be the one dealing with them. 
> 
> Johnny Giovanni: What in Terra are you talking about?
> 
> ?????: Look outside :O

The dataslate suddenly shut down and short circuited. Ladon threw it from him and briefly inspected his interface port for damage, before rushing out to the others.

‘Has anyone heard anything from Azrarach?’ he shouted. Head shakes all around. Ladon activated his vox bead and spoke aloud to the pilot. ‘Azrarach, do you read me?’ He winced as the vox only fed static back into his ears. With a brief chant to the Machine Spirits, he tried again but received no luck. ‘We have to move outside!’ he declared.

‘Wait, what’s wrong?’ Thrones asked.

‘We got what we came here for and then I received a warning. Azrarach might be in trouble. _We_ might be in trouble!’

‘There’s no time to be lost then,’ Oderic agreed, leaping to his feet. Ladon moved forward to open the door, and discovered that there was no interplanar portal beyond. With relief, he charged through to the reception room and elevator with the others on his heels. In his haste he almost collided with the far wall of the elevator, quickly recovered, and then set to manipulating its controls. Thrones hopped on last, taking one more look at the facility that seemed to only have vexed her once again, and then desperately grabbed onto a handrail as the elevator jerked into motion. As they climbed, Ladon tried the vox again, hoping that it was the kilometres of dirt and rock above them that had interfered with the signal.

‘Azrarach, do you read me? Azrarach, come in!’

The static peaked and then began to settle all of a sudden, before Azrarach’s voice came through. ‘Uh, yes Ladon. Bit of a sticky situation Belladonna and I are in right now.’

‘Elaborate.’

‘Well, there’s an Inquisitor holding a plasma pistol to my head and he says, hold on… yes? Yes! Okay, I’ve got it. He says he wants Subject KUL87. I don’t know what it means either, Ladon. I’m sorry I got caught in this!’

‘Is it Kantor? Bachmeyer?’

‘Uh, no.’

‘Don’t worry, Azrarach, just stay put!’

‘Copy that!’

‘Was it...?’ Thrones asked, genuine worry staining her otherwise hardy voice for the first time since arriving. Ladon turned to her slowly, unsure how to convey his feeling on the turn of events without simply spelling it out.

‘No. But they want you.’

A shiver ran up Thrones’ entire body, culminating in a wide-eyed stare as her nape hairs stood erect. 

It was sooner than Ladon had wanted, but presently the elevator doors opened. Before Ladon could even move, there was the sound of lasguns powering up. He found himself staring down the barrels of weapons wielded by a handful of Stormtroopers in cobalt armour and black helmets. They fanned out to surround the Rogue Trader party as they slowly emerged from the facility, hands and mechadendrites all in the air. The Stormtroopers were hardly the problem, Ladon realised, upon seeing the three figures beside Azrarach. The one most distant he recognised, barely due to the cybernetic repairs, as an Astropath. He was likely avoiding proximity with the Blank. Nearby stood a hulk of a man in a black hooded robe with bare arms and feet, who stood easily half a metre or more above even Ladon’s height, and nearly double that of Thrones or Zayn. This hulk, upon noticing Ladon’s gaze, tilted his head in the direction of the final stranger. A tall and handsome elder in a long black coat, he leaned casually against the nose of the Azrarach’s shuttle, holding a plasma pistol lazily under the chin of said pilot.

‘Ladon 47490-5,’ the man mocked in a bassy drone. ‘Or is Heretek fine?’

‘Explain yourself,’ Ladon growled.

‘I am Inquisitor Tamburlaine of the Ordo Necros. I wish to trade the life of your pilot, and by extension your fellow Rogue Traders, for a certain property.’ Tamburlaine smiled, and even Ladon felt repulsed by the sight of how many teeth he had, and how long they were. The smile seemed to stretch his face in order to accommodate itself.

‘Thrones is not _property_ ,’ Oderic spat. He took a step forward, and the standoff filled with the sound of shifting carapace armour as the Stormtroopers moved their aim to him.

‘Subject KUL87 belongs to one Inquisitor Selene Bachmeyer, now deceased. I have come to repossess it,’ Tamburlaine replied, letting his gaze drift to Oderic. The knight had nearly drawn his blade despite the Stormtroopers, but suddenly faltered as that wicked gaze bore into him. 

‘Ladon,’ Thrones said quietly. ‘I told you I didn’t want you to get hurt because of me.’

‘You said you weren’t worth it,’ Ladon countered. ‘That’s why I protested.’ To Tamburlaine he said with more volume, ‘Take me instead. I know more about Project Ascension and the subprojects it entails than Thrones does. She is a failed prototype.’

‘If you knew anything about Project Ascension, then you would know that KUL87 is no failure.’ Tamburlaine countered. He leaned forward, somehow smiling even wider and taller. Those damnable eyes were a kind of bright darkness, and they cared not for what cybernetics they had to pass as they bored right into his mind. Ladon recoiled, and his mechadendrites instinctively deployed for combat. 

Suddenly, Tamburlaine’s hulking brute had crossed the distance between them, more than 15 metres, in the blink of an eye. Their hand easily wrapped around Ladon’s head and threw him to the ground, pinning him there while the hulk crouched atop him. Zayn almost drew one of his swords, but the hulk’s gaze swiveled towards him before the mere thought had even been halfway fired through his head.

‘Do you like my guard?’ Tamburlaine crowed. ‘He is a Custodian, one of the Ten Thousand, gifted to me by God-Emperor himself.’

Ladon’s vocal implants allowed him to let off a string of binaric curses despite his face being ground into the dust. Tamburlaine chuckled at that.

‘Ladon,’ Thrones whimpered. Suddenly she clenched her fists, holding them to her sides as she stepped forward to the sound of more nervous Scion shuffling. ‘Take me, then. Let the others go.’

‘Thrones!’ Oderic cried. But she only turned to glare at him. He opened his mouth, but recognised the determination in her eyes. Not martyrdom - for that demanded recognition in its nobility - but a sheer desire to right a wrong by erasing it from the very root. She returned her gaze to Tamburlaine once Oderic was lost in his own introspection, and was thoroughly surprised to find the Inquisitor only a few centimetres from her face, apparently having let Azrarach rejoin their ranks. Tamburlaine’s smile took up nearly her entire vision. He laid his hand on her shoulder and nodded. 

‘Good,’ he said, then stepped back to address the bewildered Rogue Traders once the Custodian had released Ladon. ‘The Emperor protects.’

As the Stormtroopers moved back into formation around the Inquisitor and his prize, Zayn moved to attend Ladon 

‘Wheel around once you have your feet again, Ladon,’ he whispered. ‘I want suppressive fire for two seconds while I charge.’

The Inquisitor raised his pistol and fired a blooming bolt of superheated plasma at the intake of Azrarach’s shuttle and then fired two more times at the cockpit, setting it all ablaze. He sheathed the pistol and placed his hands behind his back, staring smugly at the marooned Rogue Traders.

‘Signal the teleportarium, o Astropath mine, and have Master Gunner prepare cyclonic torpedoes,’ he added. That threw caution out of Zayn’s mind in an instant. He screamed and leapt forward, but Tamburlaine merely smiled down at him, raising his red right hand to Zayn’s body. Something took hold of the warrior all of a sudden and he screamed in crippling agony when his limbs began to fold on their own whim before the Inquisitor released the power.

‘We are all racing towards an abyss,’ Tamburlaine explained, replacing the glove he’d removed. ‘Let your sins, guilt, and doubt, collapse into that darkness.’

As Tamburlaine and his retinue vanished into the arcane light of a teleportarium, Ladon glanced up to see the fires of the coming Armageddon ignite in the sky, parting the clouds to bring to this planet and all upon it the serenity of the void.


	6. Chapter 6

#  VI.

‘Get back in the facility!’ Ladon roared, grabbing Zayn as he turned back for the doorway.

‘No offense, Ladon, but I’m pretty sure Cyclonic Torpedoes can melt rockcrete bunkers!’ Zayn cried as Ladon took him for a bumpy ride.

‘We’re just going to have to go deeper then.’

Oderic and Azrarach met them at the elevator and Ladon took them down, practically shouting the Rites of Activation to convince the aging machinery to move faster. For a brief moment, the chamber was lit by the orange glare in the sky before the doors closed and the elevator finally began to crawl.

‘Cyclonic Torpedoes not only scorch the surface and atmosphere,’ Azrarach began, ‘but tend to additionally cause tectonic instability. In this case, going deeper might actually make things worse!’

‘Not helping,’ Ladon snapped. Turning aside he addressed his vox, ‘ _ Pride of Gladtonius _ , do you read me?’

There was a significant pause before Ladon got a reply. ‘Aye, Ladon, how goes the wee trek?’

‘What is happening up there?’

‘A ‘Quistor ship done shown up and ordered us stay put. What ‘bout you?’

‘That Inquisitor took Thrones captive and began an Exterminatus on the planet!’

There was a distant, muffled eruption that nevertheless weighed heavily on everyone’s ears. The lights in the elevator shaft flickered as dust and debris was dislodged to rain upon the poor travellers.

‘Uh, could ya repeat dat there? Yer breakin’ up a wee bit.’

‘Get out of the system! Get away from that enemy ship!’

‘Leave ye behind? Ye’re sounding like-’ The vox suddenly peaked and Ladon threw a hand up to his ear. 

‘Highlander? Highlander!’ he was about to shout a third time but another planetary impact had the elevator suddenly lurch. Half of the carriage came unaligned from the rails and the platform began to tilt, sending the occupants sliding to the lower end. Ladon latched onto the rail with his manipulator and grabbed onto Azrarach, who in turn had his hand on Zayn’s collar. Oderic had both arms draped over the opposite rail and was edging his way up the slope. 

‘Emperor save us!’ Oderic cried as the elevator’s construction squealed. Another tremor suddenly formed a crack in the wall the elevator had already collapsed into, and the entire thing began to slide into the chasm below. Oderic shouted as his lifeline went vertical and he began slipping, but remembered he still bore Ladon’s grapnel. He raised and fired it at one of the shaft’s struts along the intact wall. The hook landed home with a solid  _ clunk _ as the magnetic grips kicked in. 

‘Grab hold!’ he called to Ladon, holding out his other hand and letting himself hang freely from the grapnel line. Ladon waited until he swung close enough and then grasped his wrist. The elevator bucked and Ladon released his manipulator’s grip to join Oderic in the free hanging. Scant seconds later, as the damage to the shaft wall enlarged from another nearby tremor, the elevator slipped entirely from its perch and plummeted towards the abyss that led to the facility’s labyrinth. Zayn let out an audible gag as his collar, still in Azrarach’s grip, suddenly tugged against his throat. He swung his body around to clamber up Ladon’s sturdier legs instead and was pleasantly surprised to feel a mechadendrite wrap around to support him.

‘When we get back on the  _ Pride _ ,’ Ladon hissed, ‘I am ordering that imbecile to find us a teleportarium!’

‘And put me out of a job?’ Azrarach pouted. 

‘Hush, you.’ Ladon extended his optical mechadendrite and scanned for the remaining depth of the shaft. ‘One hundred-eleven metres,’ he announced. 

‘Grapnel line is only at fifteen,’ Oderic replied. ‘So if I lower us all, we should be able to survive that, right?’

‘Or at least Ladon could, and then catch us,’ Zayn suggested.

‘Acceptable,’ Ladon replied, already running damage control calculations. ‘I can make an emergency brake with my maglev coils.’

Oderic hit the activation rune and prayed that the winch wouldn’t overload from being at nearly triple capacity. With a mechanical noise more akin to a whinge than a normal drone, the cable began to emerge from the gas-pistol’s muzzle to begin a gradual, torturous descent. In no time, smoke began to rise from the pistol and the noise increased in pitch.

‘Now, Ladon? Could you perhaps provide a prayer to keep this contraption from fai-’

With a brutal snap, the team found themselves in freefall when the winch failed. The cable greedily tried to escape its confines, leaving them falling faster and faster while most of them began to scream. Ladon, however, silently watched the numbers count down on his optical feed while simultaneously running the physics model he needed to perform a saviour act. At 27 metres he shot his manipulator towards the shaft wall, intending to catch the strut he predicted would match the other 20 metre spacing as the rest of the shaft. With a crunch, the jaws of the manipulator landed true. The party hanging on to Ladon’s various limbs were jolted violently as their momentum came to a near complete halt, until Ladon’s mechadendrite was wrenched out of its socket. They began to fall again, and Ladon kicked at the wall in an attempt to flip himself onto the bottom of the Rogue Trader pile. 

Even when his mag coils began to fight against gravity, Ladon landed heavily on the shattered elevator they’d lost earlier. The shaft rang with the sickening crunch of breaking metal, and he suspected most came from him rather than the inert elevator even as warning runes flashed across his vision in many shades of red.

_ The glorious red of Mars _ , he thought, even as the other three landed on top of the net of half-slack mechadendrites he’d prepared for them. He collapsed shortly after, while Oderic scrambled out to reach Ladon’s side, demanding if he was okay.

‘I am operating at 70%,’ Ladon lied, believing incorrectly that a factor of three wouldn’t be too unbelievable to the uninitiated. Azrarach and Oderic attempted to haul the man-shaped pile of metal to at least a sitting position before giving up. Besides his mostly ruined armour, Ladon’s head was stuck on a 30 degree angle, his spine twisted at almost a right angle down the length of his torso, and his right arm had come clean out of its socket.

‘Frak, can you even move?’ Zayn asked.

‘Affirmative,’ said Ladon, drawing his legs towards him in an attempt to stand. Oderic and Azrarach had to catch him almost immediately. ‘Statement redacted: Please carry me towards the entrance towards the Ascendant Plane.’

‘That’s what your plan was?’ Oderic gasped.

‘Affirmative.’

‘It makes sense,’ Zayn admitted. ‘We’d be safe there presumably indefinitely while the nukes rage outside.’

‘And how do you know that?’ Oderic asked. ‘Did that daemon tell you?’

‘Not a daemon,’ Zayn pointed out. ‘And no, I am working off pure speculation.’

‘Pardon me, but could one of you fill me in on this business about “ _ Ascendant Planes _ ”?’ Azrarach politely interjected.

‘I checked my recordings,’ Ladon explained. ‘Chrono readings were congruent with real time; navigational data was entirely anomalous. Hypothesis: the Ascendant Place is a pocket dimension that exists within ordinary space-time models. Likelihood of Warp related phenomena: 3.015% with 5% margin of error.’

‘So at worst not even a 1 in 10 chance of meeting a Lord of Change,’ Zayn mused, ‘As opposed to the near certain chance of being melted by this planet’s death throes.’

Another tremor punctuated Zayn’s statement as the elevator shaft’s lights failed for good. Ladon’s stablight switched on seemingly automatically.

‘Let’s go then,’ Oderic said. ‘But do not let your guard down.’

The progress towards the gate to the Ascendant Plane was painstaking between the ever more frequent tremors and the burden of the crippled Tech-priest. When at last they succeeded, they found themselves once more in the muted corridor bathed in uncanny light. Ladon was laid down carefully, while the others finally slumped against the walls nearby.

‘Anyone bring ration bars?’ Zayn asked with a cheeky grin.

‘A pity I left most of my fresher supplies on our shuttle,’ Azrarach replied.

‘Most?’ Zayn replied, sitting a little straighter. Azrarach opened his jacket to retrieve a hip flask and slid it over to him. Zayn unscrewed the cap and took a sniff at what was inside.

‘Amasec,’ Azrarach insisted. Zayn smiled in thanks and took a deep swig before returning it.

After a length of silence, Ladon spoke, ‘Oderic, could you straighten me out? Be forceful if you must. And slide my arm back in.’

‘Of course, Ladon.’

‘Damn, I must fetch a replacement manipulator.’

‘Are you going to be alright?’

‘Yes, do not worry. I possess a self-repair mechanism that will be able to repair my damage in relatively little time,’ Ladon lied. Oderic helped put Ladon back into a normal position, and Ladon was content to rest while his phylactery - both his blessing and curse - began to knit him back together. His mind, however, was not so relaxed. Since his body was practically unusable at the moment anyway, Ladon decided now would be a good time to analyse the data collected on the mission.

He’d learnt that the Taken were a power that was perpetuated; it wasn’t natural. The Man Who Speaks in Hands was so far undeniably a vector. First of all, Ladon wondered if Lexi also had the power to Take. Damned if Lexi couldn’t stop from playing so aloof all the time. The Tyrant Star, then, was it the source of the Taken? Ladon considered how old the legends of the Tyrant Star were, but only realised that they could feasibly only date to times within the Age of the Imperium, since anything before was either lost or not even human. What insights xenos had into the Tyrant Star were most likely warped or just as incomplete as his own records, anyway. If said xenos still lived. Perhaps the Yu’vath had known of the Tyrant Star long before the coming of the Angevin Crusade? But what good was it to guess at that.

So, if the Taken were not a Warp phenomena as both he and Zayn were wont to believe despite Oderic’s suspicions - well expected as they were - how then did they appear to make up rules never before seen?

How long did the tectonic patterns of  _ Exterminatus  _ last for. According to a previously absorbed record...

Ladon doubted it was as simple as some archaeotech from the Dark Age.

Melthior Aquilius VII had been the last time Ladon had talked to someone about the Cadian Pylons.

Ladon ran through the recordings of the fight against Johnny Giovanni. Something was wrong. Things happened before they were caused or without the cause. The recording must’ve been damaged. Besides

Time was running out. How much air was in this pocket dimension? Damn, he needed some scissors, then.

The Man Who Speaks in Hands was not his target. He’d been Lexi’s. Lexi was only leaving breadcrumbs for him:  _ You’ve got bigger problems. And by that I mean I have problems, and you’re gonna be the one dealing with them. _ Ladon did not have time for games!

The scarabs that ate his soul in exchange for immortality were too slow. He lay paralysed while the nine-fingered corpse loped past the sleeping Zayn and Azrarach. 

‘You’re lying. She’s gone now,’ Ladon told it, to which it only cocked its head. 

In one hand it held a chrono.

_ Clack. _

The other nine fingers were raw flesh that trailed twinkling starlight.

_ Slap. _

‘How much time left on that Chrono?’ Ladon asked.

**NOT. FOR. YOU.**

Ladon gasped as the nine-fingered corpse slid over him, dwarfing his tiny human body, and stared down into his eyes. It opened its mouth to spill a horde of scarabs into Ladon’s open mouth while it held down his arms. Ladon turned his head to the side to avoid the deluge of plaguing creatures, but his vision was filled with a burning white crown that surrounded a Thing which Ladon couldn’t see no matter how hard he tried.

When Oderic told Ladon that he was about to join Zayn and Azrarach to try and seek Virgil, Ladon only nodded dully and hauled himself to his feet.

‘Better already?’ Oderic asked, clearly shocked.

‘Of course. I trust you do not have wounds that demand attention after the fall?’

Oderic shook his head. ‘Thankfully not. You really saved all of us.’

‘This is my job. I am your chirurgeon, after all,’ Ladon nodded. He made sure his robes sat alright over his ruined armour, and with a rather stiff-legged gait, led Oderic out of the corridor to the statue of Saint Leasah.

‘I tried to stop them,’ Oderic said. ‘Zayn insisted.’

‘I am just as curious. This anomaly is deeply interesting, and most likely tied to everything I am trying to unravel.’

Oderic grunted.

Azrarach had clambered up some of the platforms already, evidently eager to observe the face of the statue. Zayn meanwhile stood by the door with his arms on his hips, gazing into the distant lightning storms.

‘It’s a little more beautiful now, don’t you think?’ Zayn asked. ‘Now that we aren’t occupied by a mission.’

‘The mission is not over,’ Ladon replied. Zayn wheeled to look at him, apparently shocked to see him conscious and moving. 

‘I thought it would just be Oderic,’ he confessed.

‘I am not so easy to break.’

‘I think you are,’ Zayn mused, ‘but you can put yourself back together with even less trouble.’

Ladon gave a stiff shrug. It was clear he wasn’t anywhere one hundred percent yet, but little would convince the bastard of something contrary. So Zayn stayed quiet instead.

‘Any luck with that corpse-light?’ Oderic asked.

‘None,’ Zayn admitted. ‘The portal to the other chamber is missing though, I noticed that much.’

‘Virgil!’ Ladon shouted, projecting his voice through artificial means. There was no response.

‘It would abandon us so easily,’ Oderic said.

Ladon lowered his head in an approximation of a skeptical frown. ‘He must be here. Otherwise why offer to show me those… things he spoke of?’

‘Ladon! Be careful what you speak!’ Oderic snapped.

There was a hollow shriek, and Virgil flashed into existence nearby. ‘He is right about words. They are swords of themselves!’

Ladon turned to him, regarding him carefully. Just an orb of white, flickering flame. The so-called Virgil was like a comet in a tiny orbit around an invisible point. ‘I need to know more,’ Ladon demanded.

‘How can you know more when you hold nothing? You are yet to grasp the most basic shape, yet here you are asking for the finality of it. Why do you really come here? Is it duty to your slavish orthodoxy? Fealty to an absent Emperor? Sympathy for your stolen friend?’

‘Where is Octavia?’ Ladon asked.

Virgil remained hovering, silent for a moment before speaking. ‘She could tear you apart, molecule by molecule, such is her power. Why would you go looking for her?’

It took all of Ladon’s restraint to not attempt strangling the arrogant creature, as impossible as that might’ve been. ‘Vexing thing! I will have answers!’

‘Then why do you ask me? You claim you will find them.’

‘Ladon,’ Oderic warned. ‘This is going too far.’

Ladon looked at him over his shoulder, but said nothing. The sound of Virgil’s flight made him turn again, desperately seeking the will-o-wisp. Presently, it resided within the outstretched hand of the statue of Saint Leasah. Ladon moved around to stare up at him.

Virgil said to him, ‘Within the Ascendant Plane, there is carved one of many thrones. It belongs to neither the knife-armed shade nor the spectre with one red eye. See, the shade edges around the spectre slowly, waiting for him to make a move. Or perhaps she wants to force him to wait for her. Regardless, he moves first. A pistol flashes into his right hand, which the shade follows carefully as he raises it. I tell you this over many seconds, but to them it is a mere eyeblink apart! She is on his right now in an attempt to get behind his shoulder, but the pistol flies to his other hand. Now his arm crosses his chest easily and fires a round of mercurial energy at the shade. But she refuses to be struck by such a simple trick, and decides to avoid the attack. Thus it is so.

‘Behind the spectre now, the shade moves forward with her arms that are knives. But the spectre slips away, because he too could choose this. His one red eye flares as he lifts his gun to fire again. But no, the shade refutes this. She is faster anyway, so it cannot be easy for the spectre to act. She slips forward, through the burning sky of this place that is the sword world. The spectre is no match for her here, because her arms are sharp and beautiful and can kill without cause. She cuts the spectre with her swords, and he falls out of the world that is the same. His death, however, vanishes somewhere else. Thus it is so.’

‘Be sharp like a sword?’ Ladon cried to him, outraged by the obscurity of it all. ‘There is nothing that could be more simple!’

‘If you truly believe something, then why is it not so?’

With a hollow screech, Virgil disappeared, leaving behind a circular window of energy, though which Ladon could see what appeared to be the fume-choked sky of an Imperial Hive world.

+++

Inquisitor Tamburlaine stood within a chamber of truly unrivalled expense. It held ancient archaeotech from the Dark Age, an antique enough to make the likes of Ladon drool over its rarity. This was a hololithic communications chamber of unparalleled power, utilising forgotten sciences of quantum entanglement that rivaled the interstellar communication of Astropaths like Caluin. So rare was this artefact that only four others possessed them within secret halls buried beneath the moons of fortress worlds, or in ships that rivalled all others. The Ordo Necros only held five Inquisitors within its ranks. It always did, and always would. Like watching hawks, the other four cerulean hololith figures tracked Tamburlaine as he stood towards his podium.

‘You have declared a world to be dead, Tamburlaine,’ spoke a man in a nasal tone, who took the hawk metaphor further with his hooded eyes, long face, and beakish nose that was doubtless the culprit for his speech.

‘It had to be so. Ancient secrets had been buried inside,’ Tamburlaine smiled.

‘And what were these secrets?’ asked another, an Angel of Death masked by Mark VII power armour.

‘Truths and legends, both.’

‘Speak plainly, brother,’ the Space Marine said again.

‘I found prophecy to follow, and at the end recovered Subject KUL87,’ Tamburlaine replied. There was an outcry of responses to that, but Tamburlaine merely raised his hand for silence. ‘I am already organising the remaining preparations.’

A third Inquisitor, robed as a priest of Mars and with her face marred by implants, leaned forward. ‘The Vigilus are beginning to strangle us. At this crucial moment, here you stand wasting munitions on dead worlds.’

‘Olivia, you are a fool to think I am wasting anything.’

‘Do not insult me!’

‘Tamburlaine is right,’ said the fourth Inquisitor. As she looked towards him, Tamburlaine realised that merely seeing her face told him that so far he had done everything right. ‘This meeting is already far more extravagant than should be. Inquisitor Tamburlaine has found what is mine, and should’ve been allowed to alert me to it.’

‘This meeting was not initially about that, lest we forget,’ the hawkish Inquisitor whined. ‘Tamburlaine, you have always been the most radical of our number, since our origin!’

‘The world was filed away in due process,’ Tamburlaine said. ‘Daemonic infestation had been reported some time ago.’

‘Nonsense,’ Olivia sputtered. ‘I have seen no report of the planet that supports your statement!’

‘Oh? You do not follow the reports of Inquisitor Kantor Helix?’

The fourth Inquisitor murmured something towards the Space Marine. The hawkish man remained silent, but Olivia openly stared at Tamburlaine. ‘You jest, surely! There is no way that  _ he _ of all people should’ve been let so close to this!’

‘Bachmeyer was both a blessing and a curse,’ Tamburlaine explained. ‘Her rivalry with Kantor was a perfect smokescreen, but we all feared what would happen should a true vendetta form out of that. The war on Milmithia was the turning point. But of course, you already knew that. Right?’

Olivia could only stare incredulously at Tamburlaine’s grotesque smile.

‘I have one more question,’ the Space Marine said, ‘and that is in regards to the retinue that accompanied KUL87.’

‘Ah, Brother Altmann, you are more perceptive than we give you credit.’

‘You mean there are foes who are aware of our movements?’ Olivia hissed. ‘Ones who could be hunting us down for revenge at this very moment?’

‘They escaped my attempts to dispose of them,’ Tamburlaine replied. ‘But my Astropath has managed to track their current location. A Hive World in the Delganus sector named Zinliv.’

‘I will take my vessel and retinue,’ Altmann declared. ‘I need only know the identities of these loose ends.’

Tamburlaine bowed his head and closed his eyes as he listed off the names of the Tech-priest, knight, assassin and Navy batman. At this, Altmann nodded, and let his hololith flicker out.

‘Meanwhile, I shall prepare KUL87,’ Tamburlaine explained to his remaining peers, without shifting his closed gaze. ‘Our final puzzle piece.’

‘I have half a mind to assist Altmann, and the other to watch that you do not let slip further mistakes,’ Olivia hissed.

Tamburlaine opened one eye and fixed a mocking gaze at Olivia. ‘By all means, my dear. In fact, I can save you the trouble as I intend to join Altmann in the not too distant future. I of course extend my invitation to you all.’

The fourth Inquisitor smiled at that. ‘Tamburlaine, of course you can expect my visitations as soon as possible in order to inspect my prize.’

‘Yes, Tamburlaine,’ said the hawkish man, ‘I will be there too, as there is no use waiting any longer for our plans.’

‘Well, looks like this will turn out quite neatly,’ Tamburlaine agreed.

‘Very well,’ the fourth Inquisitor insisted. ‘I believe this meeting has fulfilled itself.’

Olivia’s hololith flickered out immediately. The fourth Inquisitor nodded towards Tamburlaine.

‘Thank you.’

‘Of course.’

She disappeared as well, leaving only the hawkish man. Suddenly his polite demeanour turned sour as he glared down at Tamburlaine. ‘Why did you leave them alive? Do not think you can fool me as easy as the others. What are you playing at? Moreover, what has that infernal Astropath of yours really seen?’

Tamburlaine bowed his head and closed his eyes once more, but kept his smile. ‘Ah, it appears I may have been perhaps at least partly as wasteful as Olivia says. I thought it impolite to shoot them dead when they had already surrendered.’

‘Wasteful indeed. What use do ones like us have for manners?’ 

With that, the last hololith vanished, and the runes on Tamburlaine’s podium flickered out. He opened one eye, as if confirming the empty room was just so, and then stood straight, allowing his smile to slowly fade.


	7. Chapter 7

#  VII.

Ladon and company emerged onto the balcony of one of the Hive city’s gothic spires, already many kilometres above the mountainous construction. They gazed down towards the smoke-filled sea of hab-blocks which housed the working class and obscured the dregs who dwelt in the sickened Underhives. Ladon alone chanced to peer upwards at the spires of the nobility, already attempting to locate the dwellings of the planetary governor. 

‘We need an Astropath to summon the  _ Pride _ ,’ Ladon said.

‘I suppose you’ll pull your usual tricks to get us there?’ Zayn asked. Ladon nodded, pushing away from the balcony and making his way through the door behind him. Through a steep spiral staircase, the quartet wound downwards in silence until Ladon nearly walked into a serving maid who had been obscured by the central pillar. She froze as she regarded the monstrous Tech-priest.

‘What are you doing here!?’

Ladon held up one hand as a sign of peace, but with the other he reached into his robe to withdraw his stolen rosette of the Inquisition. Upon seeing the symbol of the Emperor’s own authority, the maid lost what little colour still remained in her face. She carefully backed up and bowed low.

‘H-how can I serve you, most holy one?’ she stammered.

‘Who is your master?’ Ladon replied in a well-practised impatient drawl.

‘Ah! Lord Douroue, he is below in the librarium if you…’

‘Thank you,’ Ladon replied, and took a step down. The maid spun and began to retreat down the stairs she’d just climbed, seeing as Ladon’s bulk filled the entirety of the narrow stairwell.

‘I shall announce you to him,’ she claimed, hurrying her pace.

‘She can’t be too bright,’ Zayn muttered once she’d disappeared. ‘Didn’t even ask how we’d materialised atop a dead end.’

‘Well, Nicodemus, I for one would never question the Emperor’s Inquisition,’ Azrarach replied.

‘That fact alone makes half the problems in this sector these days,’ Ladon agreed.

‘Come now, Ladon! That’s not very kind of you to say.’

‘I suppose it isn’t,’ Ladon gave as his non-committal answer. He looked up as the maid reappeared from a doorway ahead.

‘Lord Douroue will see you now!’ she said, now red in the face. Ladon nodded and marched through to the librarium, where an older man sat within a plush velvet armchair, almost as red as his own nose. A bushy moustache like a silver yard brush hung over his jowled face, while his head held a powdered wig.

‘It is about time someone like you visited our Hive,’ he rumbled in an impeccably clipped accent, closing the thick tome he held and laying it on his lap.

‘What would you say is the problem here?’ Ladon replied, trying not to betray his ignorance to the Hive’s politics, or even its name.

‘Yes, sir Inquisitor, you see - Coraline would you fetch us some refreshment? Thank you, - you see my sir Inquisitor, I do not know any details of the conspiracy myself. I am not more than an old gossip! But the rumours amount to cults in the dark attempting to murder Governor Dandleton!’

Ladon nodded, struggling to process the waffle coming from this oaf’s mouth. Zayn and Oderic knew it was best to keep their mouths shut, while Azrarach was happy to remain polite.

‘This matches other stories I have heard,’ Ladon lied. ‘Would you then do the honour of introducing me to the Governor Dandleton?’ He was already searching through records of Hive worlds in the Calixis Sector to find a match. Zinliv, of the Zinliv system in the Delganus dwarf Sector that neighboured Calixis; population exceeding one point nine trillion.

‘You honour me with your selection, Inquisitor! Your most humble servant would lead you to the palace immediately! No, put those away you silly girl, and prepare a vehicle!’

The maid, having returned with a tray of amasec, bowed hurriedly and scurried away to do Lord Douroue’s bidding.

‘I apologise. The girl is quite absent minded at the best of times.’ Ladon nodded, and on a whim began to wander along Douroue’s collection of bookshelves. ‘Oh, of course you have an interest in the written word, where are my manners?’ Douroue stood and walked to stand beside Ladon. ‘I’ve gathered works from the most illustrious authors both in and out of the Calixis Sector! Some even come from Segmentum Solar, and I can tell you they cost quite the pretty piece of Gelt to ship here. Here, this was what I was reading before you arrived.’

Ladon tried not to sigh audibly and took the book from the noble’s fat fingers. He tilted his head once he’d read the title. ‘Nyx and the Crow: the novel companion to the number one hit war play in the Delganus Sector,’ he read aloud.

‘I don’t quite have the constitution for visiting plays, you see, due to the noise the common rabble tend to make. Quite raucous and entirely unnecessary! I much prefer, then, to read the plays myself in the comfort of my choosing. If only Coraline’s footfalls were not so loud as well! Haha!’

Ladon noticed that Zayn was starting to grind his teeth, so he suggested that Douroue lead them onwards to anticipate his carriage.

‘Oh my of course! Here I am eating up your valuable time, my Lord.’

‘Danser is fine,’ Ladon said. 

‘Ah, my apologies, Inquisitor Danser.’

Ladon grunted and allowed Douroue to lead his ‘retinue’ away.

Citing the need for privacy, the party found themselves within the rear of Douroue’s rather ostentatious auto carriage, as they headed towards the governor’s palace.

‘Great, this is the last thing we needed,’ said Zayn.

‘On the contrary, we’ve been given the exact cover story we needed,’ Ladon replied.

‘I’m not sure, Ladon. This seems like an unnecessarily complicated detour,’ said Oderic. ‘Fifty Thrones is in the hands of a rather insane enemy, and our escape so far has already been fraught with distractions.’

‘We do not have much choice,’ Ladon sighed. ‘Unless Zayn wants to try and send his mind across the Warp for us.’

‘You know I can’t do that shit. It takes a tonne of ritual and concentration. And I’ve still got my eyes!’

‘I’m sure that is only a temporary setback,’ Azrarach added, perfectly innocently. Even Ladon turned to give him a strange look. 

‘This is also assuming the planetary governor has an Astropath,’ Oderic said to break the silence.

‘Zinliv’s data was relatively up to date according to the Administratum’s census, so it stands to reason that they are able to maintain contact with other worlds of the Imperium,’ Ladon replied.

‘Well then, I presume you will contact the Highlander to pick us up, and then what?’

‘I want to research,’ Ladon said. ‘I only have half-answers thus far and it never ceases to vex me.’

Oderic sighed and leaned back against his seat. ‘Only the Emperor knows the troubles I’ve been through.’

A rapping sounded at the partition between them and the driver’s cabin. ‘We’re here, my most noble Inquisitor Danser!’ Douroue cried after sliding open a panel to view them. ‘Coraline, park over there!’

When the carriage came to a stop, the passenger door was held open by the poor maid, while Lord Douroe stood nearby, sweating profusely as he tugged on the collar of his jacket. ‘It is so horrendously warm out here!’

Ladon struggled out of the tiny door frame and took stock of his surroundings. The governor’s spire was before them, as promised, and they were still far above the Hive’s street level. Evidently, they had followed some bridged road from Douroue’s spire to this gated courtyard. Some token attempts had been made to have the courtyard appear inviting and richly decorated through the use of several rare species of flora, but the stifling smog of the Hive had evidently killed most of them off and no one had bothered trying again.

‘Right this way, honourable Inquisitor!’ Douroue called as he waddled towards the brass slabs that were the palace doors, carved with what could be considered only a standard amount of Imperial iconography. As they stepped through into a cavernous foyer cast in black marble, a pair of PDF guards moved from the front desk to intercept.

‘State your business.’

Ladon placed his hand on Douroue’s shoulder and moved himself to stand ahead of the group. ‘Inquisitorial business. I am here to visit Governor Dandleton to discuss the threat on his life.’ The PDF guards almost began to argue, when Ladon flashed his badge of office. They immediately signed the Aquila, and stood aside to let him towards one of the staircases at the back of the room.

‘Why are you still here?’ Ladon asked Douroue as the noble climbed the staircase beside him. 

In between panting, Douroue replied ‘I wish to introduce you, of course! A friendly face to help ingratiate you to Governor Dandleton!’

‘Your services are no longer required.’

Douroue halted halfway up the stairs. ‘But, but I…’

‘What I wish to discuss with the governor is confidential. Surely you understand the dangers of my line of work.’

Douroe’s eyes bulged outwards. ‘You mean?’

‘That’s right, If you fall any deeper into this rabbithole, you might very well be targeted the same as the governor. It’d be better if you forgot you saw me.’

Douroue looked left and right, trying to figure out what to do. ‘Your secret is safe with me, Inquisitor!’ he whispered. ‘I shall fade into the night; like a phantom!’ He signed the Aquila and then bounded down the stairs, calling for Coraline to start the carriage again.

‘He seemed like a pleasant chap! Perhaps we could seek accommodation with him while we wait for the  _ Pride of Gladtonius _ to arrive?’ Azrarach suggested.

‘Perhaps,’ Ladon intoned, pushing through the door atop the stairs which led to the governor’s office.

Governor Dandleton was a brutish looking man, quite the opposite form of Douroue. He gazed at Ladon’s entry from small, dark eyes beneath a wide forehead. His face was heavily lined by a lifetime of hardship, with a mouth set into a permanent scowl that folded his jowls.

‘Yes, he’s here now. Thank you,’ he said gruffly into a small vox unit on his desk. His voice carried with it the instant impression of an Imperial Guard commander. Indeed, as Ladon scoped out the office itself he caught many instances of memorabilia related to what he surmised to be the Cadian 716th. Besides a pair of flags, one bearing the Cadian fortress insignia and the other of Zinliv’s planetary symbol, there was also a cavalry sabre framed on a stand, several letters of commendation, and the polished carapace of an ambull head mounted directly behind his seat.

‘We heard reports of threats on your life,’ Ladon explained.

Dandleton nodded. ‘I wasn’t expecting it to reach the ears of the Inquisition,’ he admitted. ‘Local rebels, really. Something I thought the Arbites might’ve been able to handle.’

‘There were rumours of cults, not mere rebels,’ Ladon replied. Not that he cared, but for some reason he felt at home performing a role similar to what he had done under Kantor and Krowe.

‘Rumours, dear Inquisitor. Believe me, the bastards threatening to put my head on a platter are probably the same slummers who pray to God Emperor each night. Problem is, they’re greedy. Think I’m taxing them too much, but you can check the tithe records.’

‘I might,’ Ladon replied. ‘But before I begin my proper investigation, I would like to commandeer an Astropath, if you have any, so that I might report back to my peers that I have made contact.’

‘Of course. I’ll summon her right away.’

‘Thank you.’

Dandleton nodded and spoke into his vox caster once more, requesting one Astropath Meing to present herself to his office. Afterwards he addressed Ladon once more, ‘Is there anything else I can do to help you settle this matter?’

‘If you can provide me with Arbite reports on the matter, I would greatly appreciate that. I would like to find a way to track down elements of the rebel forces.’

‘I can have them collated, but it will be a while. I can arrange for you to have a room here with me, if you’d wish.’

‘Splendid.’

The door behind them opened and a tall, thin woman in crimson robes approached. ‘Your excellency?’

‘Inquisitor, this is Meing of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica of course. Meing this is… I’m sorry, how should we address you other than ‘Inquisitor’?’

‘Danser is fine.’ Ladon said. The Tech-priest found himself nodding to Meing even though she wouldn’t have seen. He indicated Oderic, Zayn, and Azrarach respectively with, ‘This is Raiden, Skelyr, and Gheleon.’

‘It is an honour to work for you three,’ she replied, then seemed to frown. ‘No, you said four names.’

‘Gheleon is a blank,’ Zayn said hesitantly. 

‘I most certainly am not blank, I have many a thought running through my head!’

‘Psychic null,’ Ladon explained. 

Meing nodded. ‘Yes, I cannot sense him at all. Presumably, you would understand if I would keep my distance.’

‘Inquisitor Danser here wishes to use you to communicate with his peers that he has arrived safely on Zinliv,’ Dandleton explained.

‘Of course. Who might the recipient be?’

Ladon provided her the details of the  _ Pride of Gladtonius _ . ‘Tell them that these are our coordinates, and that they should move to rendezvous as soon as possible.’

‘Very well. May the Emperor protect,’ Meing said, bowing before she left to prepare for the ritual communication.

‘I’ll lead you to your rooms, if you have no other requests?’ Dandleton offered.

‘Thank you.’ Ladon gestured for him to take the lead, and followed on. 

‘If you’re wondering,’ Dandleton said while he walked, ‘the rebels have apparently hired some killer from a Death Cult and want me to release a significant portion of my wealth within the next three days, or they will have me killed.’

‘Blackmail?’ Oderic asked.

‘Yes, well… I can’t say I expected anything less. Their riots died out after the Arbites and Enforcers beat them back into shape, and the remaining conspirators are hiding in the shadows now. This Death Cultist I know nothing about, though. I doubt they exist, actually. No way that rebel scum could afford the services of a Ministorum assassin, much less convince anyone of their own righteousness.’

The pair of PDF guards saluted as they reentered the foyer and wrapped around towards the rear of the building. 

‘I would not take their threats so lightly,’ Oderic said. ‘If you have, for example, even slightly fallen out of favour with the Ecclesiarchy, then they likely will take any chance they can to remove you and replace you with someone more sympathetic, or more open with the planetary coffer.’

‘Ecclesiarchy ain’t that big round here, to be frank. And like I said, I pay my tithes right. I served for 40 years with the 716th, in the Emperor’s name, so if anyone wants to call me a traitor, they can say it to my face.’

‘I’m sure the Death Cultist wouldn’t mind,’ Zayn smirked.

‘Eh? Regardless, those bastards squatting in sewer pipes don’t know a thing ‘bout serving the Emperor. They can barely muster up the will to work properly in the Manufactorums. I lost both legs and one of my lungs in the trenches!’

They came to a stop at that rather morbid point, with Dandleton unlocking a bedroom suite for them. ‘One of you’ll have to double up, and that’s assuming the Inquisitor’s steel means he doesn’t sleep.’

Ladon grunted as he walked inside, briefly scanning the stacks of dressers that flanked a pair of large beds.

‘If you need anything,’ Dandletone said pointing to a wired vox device standing on a desk by the door, ‘Then you can call me on that line there.’

‘That will be all, Governor.’

Dandleton nodded, bowing his head as he made his leave. 

Ladon raised his hand to the others to indicate they should stay put. ‘What should our next move be, Raiden?’

Oderic frowned, unsure how to respond. ‘I’m sure staying put will not harm us too much, Inquisitor. We deserve a rest.’

‘I will consider it,’ Ladon replied, extending a pair of mechadendrites as he began examining each wall of the room. The vox device itself, he pointed to, and signaled that it was no good. Behind the portrait of an Imperial Navy officer, he made another signal, as well as pointing out the central light fixture. Exiting the adjoined water closet, he shook his head, before finally inspecting the pantry, pushing Azrarach out of the way to get close to it. Satisfied, he returned to the center of the room and held up four fingers.

‘On second thought, I find myself restless. I think I shall venture to the librarium,’ he said aloud.

‘Very good, Inquisitor,’ Oderic nodded.

Dandleton’s librarium was rather destitute, barely much more than a token attempt to entertain guests. This served Ladon well, for any other soul was entirely absent at present. Ladon found a distant table in the corner of the dim room, ran another check for bugs, and at last allowed himself a chance to sit down. His body was still on the mend, even though it was functional, and the stress was starting to pound against the still-soft parts of his head.

‘Hiding something, or just scared he’ll get punished for losing control of his population?’ Zayn asked.

‘I’ll put it all on the first option,’ Oderic said.

‘There will be no astropathic message sent at all,’ Ladon agreed. ‘Or if there is, it will come with an addendum telling the Highlander that his assistance will not be required.’

‘What? Why would Mister Dandleton do something like that?’ Azrarach asked.

‘This certainly throws a wrench in things,’ Zayn said, looking towards Ladon. ‘What say you, “Inquisitor”?’

‘Of all times to fall into a conspiracy…’

‘How long would Dandleton feign to keep us?’ Oderic asked. ‘Especially if he can blame our deaths on the rebels.’

‘This is a given,’ said Ladon. ‘In that case, I would very much like to meet these rebels.’ He swivelled to address Azarach’s earlier question, ‘This is not the first corrupt planetary governor to crop up in the galaxy, let alone the Calixis Sector.’

‘I see,’ Azrarach said sadly. 

‘Ok, next bet: Xenos or Chaos?’ Zayn offered.

‘Xenos,’ said Oderic.

‘Definitely Xenos,’ Ladon echoed.

‘Really?’ Zayn asked. ‘Well now I want to change my bet.’

+++

Much to Ladon’s vexation, rumours of the Inquisition’s supposed presence on Zinliv had already spread. Krowe would’ve had his mechanical guts for garters for this sloppiness, but Ladon also reminded himself that he was presently upset that his fake cover story was blowing his fake subtlety. Nevertheless, he realised it would be extremely hard to attempt to find a way to contact the rebel populace despite the fact it was clear that a very small portion of the population were happy with the state of the Hive’s affairs. 

Ladon was once again thankful that he was not afraid of being a Radical. Someone with a more upstanding reputation snooping around for a suspected xenotech black market might’ve sent the rats into their holes. A stranger with non-standard implants that a trader in said xenotech would recognise was another thing entirely. The signs were all there, recognisable as Ladon had dabbled in his own illicit trips to gather information on xenotechnoloyg on his own before. Such a prevalence on Zinliv pointed towards a lurking xenos presence, which Ladon hoped to mire himself in to gather attention from the Hive’s rebellion. Ladon, with his Mechanicus robes replaced for now with leather ganger threads, was presently accompanied by Zayn as they traveled yet further down the twilight decks of the Underhive to another shady door, triple bolted and reinforced with spiked iron plating.

Ladon looked for Zayn to see if he was ready, received a nod in response, and then knocked on the door. A slot slid open, through which Ladon could see the telltale glow of a cybernetic eye. Ladon leant down to match the observer’s height, while Zayn peered in from the side to announce his presence.

‘Hello,’ Ladon said, ‘we’re looking for mountain rocks?’

The slot closed with a  _ clang _ . Ladon stepped back as the locks were undone, before the door slid open. A grimy man in ill-fitting flak armour held a shotgun level with Ladon’s gut, giving him a look over with that bionic eye of his.

‘You’re damned into the metal stuff then, aintcha?’

‘I am a collector,’ Ladon agreed. ‘I need certain replacements.’

‘Not lookin’ for cogboy things I take it?’

Ladon cocked his head as if insulted by the prospect. The fence looked around to check the alley, and then ushered them inside.

‘So,’ he asked while leading them through a hallway and down some stairs into a basement, ‘are you ex-Mechanicus yourself, or just wanting to getcher mitts on some more chrome?’

‘Formerly a member of the priesthood,’ Ladon replied.

‘Fair ‘nuff. I ain’t ever been with ‘em, obviously, but I’d understand the need to put metal bits in regardless.’

‘I’m curious as to what you have. Everyone else directed me here when they couldn’t quite meet my patrician tastes.’

‘Oh we gots the good stuff, alright. Follow me.’

Within the basement, the fence shifted a tarp on the floor aside to reveal a door sealed with a combination lock. Once he’d dealt with that, he gestured for Ladon and Zayn to enter the dimly lit sub-basement. Ladon stepped down a precariously steep ladder and took a look around at the surprisingly spacious area. Zayn almost gagged at the sight of the baroque perversion of the alien mechanisms that lay down here.

‘Dark Eldar,’ Ladon said. ‘Now that explains a lot,’

‘Does it now?’ the fence asked, clambering down to them.

‘The three bolts on your door, and the fact it was so hard to track you down,’ Ladon said easily. The fence chuckled at that.

‘You know your stuff, tin-man. Now, ‘ow much cash yous got anyways?’

Ladon moved to examine the monstrous weapons that lined the walls. Splinter pistols and rifles seemed in abundundance, while more specialised items like agonizer whips and poisoned scissorhands only made the odd appearance. He needed to take something back with him, if only to make himself appear a threat to the xenos-fearing rebellion. But, quite honestly he despised each artefact. The Dark Eldar were a horrific xenos race loved by none. Necron technology was one thing, as to Ladon it embodied the ideals of everlasting machines, but Dark Eldar devices existed only to cause utterly inhuman suffering. As a chirurgeon, this was especially despicable to Ladon even before one considered the arcane horrors wrought by the twisted beings.

‘Where in this forsaken sector do you find these things?’ Ladon asked.

‘Top secret, mate. Can’t ‘ave you go and undercut my supplier, can I?’

Ladon swallowed his pride and decided he needed to earn this fence’s trust a little more. ‘You’re only showing me basic equipment. This could’ve fallen off the back of a corsair ship for all I know. If you’ve got a real supplier, I’d like to see the wargear of the Haemonculus covens.’

The fence laughed. ‘Oho, I see why you done quit out the Mechanicus. What’s the word they sling at people like you? Heretek, right?’ He laughed again. ‘Lemme go talk to the boss, then. We keeps the special stuff extra safe.’

Ladon nodded, turning back to pretend to examine a splinter rifle. Zayn sidled up to him once the fence had disappeared.

‘This stuff is horrific. The psychic residue on them is sickening.’

‘Get used to it. This should leave a nice stench for that Death Cultist to follow.’

‘I hope you know-’ Zayn was cut off by the sound of stubguns being fired upstairs, followed by something tipping over and sending other objects crashing to the floor. Ladon slipped his storm bolter out of his bag and attached it to his gauntlet, while Zayn drew his swords.

‘They might be earlier than anticipated,’ Ladon said.

The fence appeared at the top of the stairs, momentarily blocking most of the light with his form. He soon lost all sense of rigidity and toppled forward, landing on the floor before Zayn and spreading a pool of blood. The lights upstairs went out, and the next thing Zayn saw was the after image of a shadow dancing towards him. He made a twitch reaction to block. Steel rang on steel, and the assailant paused as if impressed by Zayn’s speed. 

The assassin was evidently female, for her inky bodyglove left her full figure generously on display, though her face was entirely masked in black. She kicked at Zayn and then flew backwards even as a knife sailed from her hand and struck the hanging lamp of the weapons vault. It rocked violently, throwing the room’s lighting into an ever-changing disarray of disorienting contrast. 

Zayn took a deep breath and let his mind go numb so that instinct could kick in. 

‘Synskin,’ Ladon noted. ‘I cannot gain thermal readings.’ He lit up his stablight, and then recoiled in shock when a knife flew into the bulb and shattered it.

Zayn remained silent, instead trying to learn the chaotic rhythm of the swinging lamp, knowing that the assassin would strike in time with that. He felt himself step forwards and swivel his upper body to the right before he even consciously registered the enemy’s movement. His sword blocked her swing, but he hadn’t expected her to draw a second weapon, which she plunged through his flak armour as if it were silk. The blade burned inside him and he cried out. 

Ladon let loose a hail of bolt rounds but couldn’t hit the dancing shadow. She once again faded into some distant reach of the sub-basement. The rounds detonated harmlessly against the rockcrete walls, creating brief flame and sparks, within which Zayn caught the assassin’s next move. He swung at her, which she blocked, but his off-hand weapon was prepared to parry her incoming flurry. Ringing metallic impacts sounded again and again; more times than Zayn could bother counting when under the spell of combat. Each strike threw sparks around the room. Still, Zayn could not register anything in the masked face, but caught sight of a long braid of crimson hair. Suddenly her attacks relented, but instead of counter-attacking, Zayn felt the need to step aside. The assassin’s blades thrust low together, right where his legs had been. They sparked off each other and Zayn stepped onto them without hesitation. He heard his opponent gasp, and lashed out at her. His blade sliced through the flimsy synskin and into something meaty. 

In his adrenaline heightened awareness Zayn could hear the droplets of blood that flew off the tip of his sword, but could not make out the sound of the assassin’s retreat. He took a deep breath, ignoring the searing in his chest, and steadied his posture. He noticed that Ladon had since circled around to guard the entrance. His glowing eyes were the only steady points of reference in this room.

The assassin swept forward, leading with one strike which Zayn blocked immediately, but she delayed the second one and it bit into Zayn’s shoulder when he reacted preemptively. He clenched his fist around his sword hilt, defying instinct to flinch, and drove his own blade forward. This time he poured some of his psychic might into the weapon’s crystalline circuitry when it slid past the assassin’s ribcage, and a bolt of psychic lightning danced along the blade’s tip. It leapt over the assassin and she squealed in pain, collapsing briefly to her knees before she leapt straight up. Zayn raised his eyes, expecting to see her clinging to the ceiling, but somehow lost track of her. Ladon opened fire at a corner of the room, but only managed to noisily destroy a rack of xenotech. 

Zayn swung his sword over his shoulder in time to block another attack, and then swung around in the opposite direction. The assassin blocked the counterattack, but Zayn dropped and kicked at her leg. She fell forwards and Zayn maneuvered his blades into position for gravity to impale her. He was instead shocked when the impact never came. He blinked, trying to clear away a sudden afterimage of bright pinpricks of light, when the assassin reached her arm around his neck. Zayn reversed the grip on his swords and thrust them backwards, hearing her sharp intake of breath in his ear. Again, Zayn channeled his psychic might through them, but recoiled from a sudden sensation in his head, like a blanket being placed over his thoughts. He tried sliding his blades up, but they were caught against her ribs without enough leverage on his end to push them further.

He felt the assassin’s hand slide across his neck, bringing the blade close to his throat, so he did the only thing he could think of and bit into her wrist. As her blade clattered to the floor, Zayn sincerely did not expect her to bite him back. Nevertheless, what felt like a pair of fangs sunk into the flesh of his neck. She dropped her other blade at this point and moved her hands down to where Zayn had her impaled, and instead pinned his wrists, using her mouth’s grip on his neck to ensure he couldn’t struggle. In fact, Zayn was leaning into the bite to ensure she couldn’t attempt to pull out and try again for his artery. It was in the middle of this bizarre wrestling match that Ladon swung the butt of a Dark Eldar rifle against the back of the assassin’s head, dropping her limp. She fell backwards into his waiting mechadendrites, while Zayn freed his swords from her.

‘You weren’t meant to try and kill her!’ Ladon chided.

‘Are you kidding? I did what I could to not die. And you were the one firing your Emperor-damned storm bolter!’ Zayn replied, reaching up to steady the hanging lamp at last. ‘I’ve got double the amount of holes I started the day with.’

Ladon dropped the bludgeon and lay the woman onto the ground, examining her stab wounds and applying appropriate treatment. Zayn, taking from Ladon’s own medkit, bandaged himself. Once Ladon was satisfied that she wouldn’t immediately bleed to death, he moved back to Zayn and undid the bandages to give his own professional treatment, ignoring Zayn’s protests. Satisfied that both patients would live, Ladon gave Zayn a chance to umask the assassin, revealing a pale face with angular features. Most notable was the dark coloured makeup and exaggerated canines poking out from her upper lip.

‘Interesting,’ said Ladon, recognising the infamous Syra Fireheart. ‘This really is a small sector.’


	8. Chapter 8

#  VIII.

When Syra found she’d regained consciousness, she kept her eyes shut and her body limp. The slight deception would give her any necessary advantage if she wanted to get the jump on her captors. She discovered immediately that she was bound to a chair, so strained her ears to catch the wisps of conversation from the adjacent room. The heavily accented man from the black market den discussed something with another man she didn’t recognise. She cracked open an eye slowly, suspecting that she’d been left alone while they discussed business in private.

Zayn grinned back, sitting opposite her. ‘Welcome back.’

Syra sat up straight, blinking as she examined the familiar face. ‘Wait, you’re… one of the Highlander’s Rogue Traders?’

‘Zayn’s fine.’

Syra frowned. ‘So that strange cogboy with you was… Ladon, right?’ Zayn nodded in the affirmative and Syra scoffed. ‘What the hell were you two doing looking for xenotech like that?’

‘Trying to find you, apparently.’

Syra glanced around the room, recognising that they still dwelt in the same den as where they fought. ‘What on Terra for?’

‘Wanted to make contact with the rebellion here to help sort this business with the governor.’

‘Oh! I can tell you all about that. Dandleton here is in the palm of a Dark Eldar’s claws. He sends thousands of his loyal workers to toil and die, or worse, in the Eldar slave pits every few cycles. Rebel leader hired me as a last ditch effort. I’ve been trying to track down the xenotech trades that have sprouted up, and obviously ran into you lot, but I’m mainly here to take Dandleton’s head in three days if he doesn’t throw out the xenos.’

Zayn nodded, having already pieced most of this together with Ladon, and said to Syra, ‘You realise that if they find out they’re not getting collaboration, the Eldar are just going to wipe out this whole planet?’

‘Oh most certainly. That’s hardly my problem once I get paid and leave. Nothing short of an Astartes strike team can save this world.’

Zayn ran his hand through his hair and opened his mouth to reply.

‘Can you untie me, please? I only attacked because I didn’t recognise you,’ Syra interrupted.

‘Ladon!’ Zayn called towards the door. The Tech-priest, once more in his robes, strode through a moment later tailed by Oderic.

‘Hi, Ladon!’ Syra chimed.

‘You!’ Ladon said, stalking up to her, ‘You have a lot of explaining to do!’

Syra sighed. ‘I thought you guys were xenos sympathisers! I’m sorry I bit you, Zayn. If it makes you feel any better, you tasted awful.’

‘No not that!’ Ladon growled. ‘Tell me about the Ascendant Plane!’

Syra’s face went pale enough to rival a Dark Eldar. 

‘What did I miss?’ Zayn asked Oderic. 

‘According to Kantor’s records, Syra might know something more about the Taken than Thrones did.’

‘Oh, is Thrones still with you?’ Syra asked, trying to be nonchalant about it. Zayn winced and tried to avoid eye contact. Syra looked up at Ladon, frowning.

Ladon said, ‘She has been abducted by an Inquisitor named Tamburlaine.’

‘YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO KEEP HER SAFE!’ Syra screeched. She lunged at him and only succeeded in tipping her chair forward and smashing her face against the rough floor. Ladon lifted her back up, feeling guilty even as the bloodied Syra twisted and turned in a bid to escape her binds.

‘She gave herself up,’ Ladon tried explaining. ‘I’m sorry.’

Syra’s struggling slowed, reducing her to a panting, teary-eyed mess. She cursed at Ladon a few more times, and then fell silent.

‘The will of the Emperor has brought you to us,’ Ladon continued. ‘You are just who I need to help me unravel the mysteries that Thrones, myself, and the Tyrant Star are all tangled in. We can still save her.’

Syra took a deep breath. ‘You weren’t meant to go prodding any further,’ she said, fighting to keep her voice level. ‘Just keep Thrones away from anyone who wanted to use and harm her.’

‘It was her idea,’ Ladon admitted. ‘She was certain that there was some reason or rhyme to Kantor’s order to have her killed. When we found the records, I knew the rabbithole only went deeper.’

‘Thrones is in more danger than you know.’

‘Admittedly, I know nothing!’

Syra nodded. ‘It certainly wasn’t easy for me to learn, either. Remind me what records you are referring to?’

‘Kantor kept tabs on the many conversations your warband had on  _ Vera Secundus _ and  _ Mademoiselle _ .’

Syra blushed furiously at that. ‘I see. You know about Thrones’ involvement in things like Psy-Warrior and its offshoots?’

‘Yes, culminating in Project Ascension. We had just revisited Bachmeyer’s Daemon-trigger facility when Inquisitor Tamburlaine attacked us.’

‘I’ve served with several Inquisitors since Kantor, but Tamburlaine is not a familiar name. Ordo?’

‘Necros.’

‘Never heard of it.’ Syra frowned and licked the blood from the top of her lip. Ladon fished a cloth from his medkit and wiped her clean. ‘Well then,’ Syra continued, ‘I’ll begin with what happened when we fought the Tyrant Star, both before and after I sent Thrones to you. More importantly, what I’ve learned about how this galaxy works.’

‘I think the first thing I need to tell you, is that there are antediluvian things that have existed far before the time of the Imperium. They predate the Ages of Strife and Technology. They predate the Fall of the Eldar and the War in Heaven, which you must recognise from your fascination with Necrons, Ladon. These things were ancient before the Warp had reflected in it the first death of a mortal. The Tyrant Star represents one of these things. 

‘When we landed within its realm - Thrones, Gaius and I - we did battle with who I know as the Man Who Speaks in Hands. It acted as the Tyrant Star’s champion, and I believe it was Taken like the others. This was the Tyrant Star’s power, and it used what is called Sword Logic to achieve this. Simply put: if existence is defined as the struggle to exist, then anything that cannot protect itself does not deserve that existence. It is both a philosophy and a… a universal law, almost. If one proves they are sharp enough to survive, their blade can affect causality itself. 

‘I’ve been studying it myself. I have already learnt to hide my death in the Ascendant Plane, and I know many other powers that others consider unnatural. Kantor led me to my death, quite on purpose I’m sure, during the mop-up campaign against Bachmeyer’s followers, which served to my advantage, you see. Chey - that’s the Third, not your highlander - can do something similar, although he doesn’t put as much into it as I do these days. Don’t look at me like that! Isn’t it plain that the Imperium itself proves the central tenet? As long as we survive, we prove our strength. Too many people simply have their eyes shut to notice how to wield it, though. A sword in its sheath is wasted power. 

‘The Tyrant Star could use its power within the Ascendant Realm to, quite literally, “Take” someone and brainwash it. Guardsmen, Commissars, previous Acolytes, even Orks: I fought them all during my campaign with Kantor. Chey was partially Taken as well, but that’s beyond my ballpark. Nevertheless, the Tyrant Star told us that it had not been defeated, only delayed. You are right to still worry about it and its ilk.

‘The Ascendant Plane itself is still something of a mystery to me. It’s a space between worlds, I would imagine the Materium and the Warp, where the Sword Logic reigns supreme. A powerful being can carve a way inside, forming a pocket dimension within the darkness where they can hide their true soul. Were Zayn to have finished me off earlier, I would’ve simply returned to my so-called Throne World. In that vein, the Tyrant Star is not finished. It told me as much.’

Syra paused, taking a deep breath. ‘That’s what I know about  _ that _ . On the other hand, we have the whole Thrones and Bachmeyer thing going on, right? When I returned to Kantor after leaving Thrones in your hands, he told me that Thrones was the key to Bachmeyer’s return. Of course, he suspected I hadn’t killed her but couldn’t prove it. He still… punished me for it. He essentially guaranteed my expulsion from the Moritat, leaving me forced into working with him to further his feud with the Bachmeyerites.

‘When I returned from my death, I took pains to make a new life. I go by “Shroud” now, professionally, and I’m able to fake my credentials enough to have employers still believe I’m with the Ministorum. But I was never free to track anything about Bachmeyer down myself. Or you lot, for that matter. About the only contact I’ve managed to keep was with Chey, and that’s practically restricted to the Ascendant Plane since he’s still stuck working for Kantor.

‘So there you go, everything I have on those two debacles. The Tyrant Star isn’t done yet, and Thrones is the key to Bachmeyer,’ Syra finished, hanging her head.

Ladon signalled to Oderic to sever her ties. The assassin stood, rubbing her wrists, before attending to her hair.

‘Tamburlaine told us he knew about Thrones,’ Ladon said. ‘He called her KUL87, her ID from Bachmeyer’s initial project.’

Syra looked up at that. ‘So he’s in on Project Ascension then?’

‘Yes.’

Syra lifted a finger to her nose and previously bruised lip. During her monologue, they’d healed at an unnatural pace. Instead, she bit her fingertip as she nervously tried to figure out what to do. ‘Tamburlaine. Ordo Necros. We need to find them. Yes, we have to save Thrones.’

‘And the Tyrant Star?’ Ladon prompted.

‘I don’t know. That’s not my priority.’

‘Well it is mine, even if we divert to rescue Thrones.’

‘I still think we have yet more immediate problems,’ Oderic interrupted. ‘Namely, how we’re going to get any form of transport if this governor is holding us hostage.’

‘Right,’ Ladon agreed, turning back to Syra. ‘We’re currently posing as Inquisitors in a bid to use the governor’s Astropath to call the Highlander, but-’

‘He’s corrupt, like I told Zayn,’ Syra explained. ‘This Hive is lost to Dark Eldar whether he steps down or is beheaded. In three days I’ll finish my contract and then you guys can tag along with me on whatever pilgrim vessel is leaving the system.’

Ladon looked at both Oderic and Zayn in turn. Oderic remained in a pensive frown, while Zayn only shrugged. ‘It’s not as if we have much choice,’ Ladon admitted.

‘Hey, if you can introduce me as the fourth member of your retinue, then that’d make my assassination much easier,’ Syra said brightly.

‘Fifth. We brought Azrarach as well. He’s at the governor’s palace right now, actually. I’ll let him know we’re making out way back.’

The Rogue Traders began to file out, while Zayn returned Syra’s swords to her. Syra leaned close to him and in a hushed tone asked, ‘Hey uh, how in depth were those recordings Kantor took?’

Zayn smiled wickedly at her. ‘First thing I’m telling Thrones after we rescue her is that you’ve been biting other people.’

Syra let out a squeak. Her cheeks burned as red as her hair while Zayn moved past her, cackling.

+++

Caluin walked with Thrones, who was manacled by one of Tamburlaine’s Custodes, towards one of many laboratories aboard the  _ Ruber Manum Dex _ . They had been in silence for the entire walk from the prison cell, until at last Caluin began to talk over the sound of a door hissing open, revealing a sterile white room filled with medical equipment.

‘You should be honoured to take part in my Lord’s work, KUL87,’ he wheezed.

Thrones turned to glare at him. Caluin cocked his head. ‘I’ve served with my lord for at least two centuries now. He is very excited to finally complete his project. Now it is your turn. You will do well for the Emperor, propelled by my Lord’s guiding hand.’

Thrones was led inside and steered towards a small cubicle superficially resembling a refreshed unit. Her manacles were released, only for the Custodian to press her inside the cubicle and lock the door.

‘Please remove your clothes, 87. Place them in the receptacle provided,’ said Caluin.

From within the cubicle, Thrones frowned. This all felt so familiar and yet, entirely different. So often reduced to but a number or two; forever just someone’s experiment that hardly worked. On her homeworld, her captors had locked her in a room with a daemon who had invaded every aspect of her mind. Yet here the poorly Caluin, perhaps one of the least intimidating figures she’d met, seemed to act like her new captivity was a favour.  _ Please. _ Even the feigned courtesy was more than what she’d gotten under Bachmeyer’s rule. It was strange as well that Caluin had even needed to ask. She recognised him as a psyker, which meant if he wanted to he would simply hijack her brain, just the way she’d been programmed to behave. A sudden flash of memory, of Lark’s childish face staring grimly while she strung a shadowy eel though her mind, brought Thrones to her knees. Her body started to shake so she gripped her arms tightly.

‘87? Do you require assistance?’ Caluin called, suddenly snapping her out of it. Her white-knuckled deathgrip slackened so that she could pry her arms off themselves and ball her hands into fists.

‘I want answers,’ she called back.

‘Certainly,’ Caluin wheezed, ‘if this will help you understand what work you do. What would you like to know?’

‘I’m… I’m a replicae, aren’t I?’

‘Yes. You were bred from a batch set to match your initial host. If I am not mistaken, your serial number “87” is quite literal.’

Thrones felt the ship’s deck revolving beneath her. She reached out to steady herself, her eyelids drooping. She’d always known and yet… it couldn’t be! ‘Why?’ she cried feebly. 

Caluin paused noticeably before answering. ‘Your host’s psyche was rendered unwhole at some point. You were an attempt to repair them. By utilising specific psycho-active techniques, as I am no doubt you’re aware, we could guarantee a proper connection to the original’s soul once we graft you back together.’

Spare parts. She was nothing but spare parts. ‘But… but Bachmeyer wanted to use us as soldiers!’

‘We allowed Bachmeyer to test the procedures we wished to use. What she intended to do with her subjects did not matter, for we knew they would not bear fruit for her. Except for you, 87. You were the only one rendered a success, partly due to Bachmeyer’s attempted hijacking of our plan to use your body as a conduit for her own psyche.’

‘What about… what about the others?’

‘Only you grew to be something more than some mere replicae,’ Caluin replied. ‘Subject 87, you still have a chance to save the life of your original self. You can still be made whole; all you need to do is let me help you.’

Thrones sucked in a great gulp of air and stood again, leaning against the wall of the cubicle for a moment before she began to strip off her bodyglove. She examined the scars on her traumatised flesh, born from a lifetime of torture and violence. The seams on her thighs where her legs had been replaced with cybernetics seemed to glow under the lab’s sterile lighting. Her own eyes were fakes, as was her left arm and even her heart. 

_ You can still be made whole… _

‘I’m ready,’ Thrones called. She heard the Custodian unlock the door before reaching in for her wrist and leading her towards Caluin. Caluin pointed at a door that led further into the lab, before heading there first. The Custodian, and Thrones, followed in silence as Caluin unlocked the door. 

Inside was a much more advanced medical setup, with dozens of arcane machines that Thrones had never seen before even in Bachmeyer’s labs. Standing up against a shelf full of strange displays of bones was some sort of Tech-priest. Their lower legs resembled cybernetic stilts, just visible beneath their ragged red coat. Around their neck was an extensive mess of tubes and power plants, including strange glass orbs filled with horrific green ichor. 

‘Vyala?’ Caluin called.

The Tech-priest turned around to reveal they were female, with a waspish figure beneath the coat. She had a collection of cybernetic eyes arranged like a spider’s, glowing in green, and upon seeing Thrones her smile lit up immediately as several scything blades emerged from mechanical limbs on her neck.

‘Thiss, uh, iss the ssubject 87, heh?’

‘Yes. Lord Tamburlaine requests a complete check as per previous procedures.’

‘I will, aha, perform the ssacred, hmm, ritess.’

‘Answer any questions she may have, please. Would you like to keep Fomal here?’

‘No, no, I, hmm, musst work in complete, ah, privacy!’

‘Very well. KUL87?’ Caluin turned to Thrones, who wasn’t quite sure where to look back due to his empty eye sockets.

‘Yes?’ Thrones at last ventured.

‘I hope this makes you feel better.’

Again, Thrones was left uncertain how to respond as the door closed and Vyala asked her to lie down on a nearby operating slab. 

Meanwhile, Tamburlaine was standing outside the laboratory as Caluin and the Custodes Fomal approached.

‘Leave us,’ the Inquisitor said to the Custodes, who bowed and strode off in the direction of his barracks. Tamburlaine turned back to Caluin and smiled. ‘How did 87 take to the procedures?’

‘I had to talk to her for a bit,’ Caluin admitted. ‘She wanted to know her purpose.’

‘What did you tell it?’

‘The truth,’ Caluin replied, slightly amused at Tamburlaine’s utter refusal to refer to Thrones as anything but an object.

Tamburlaine’s smile grew wider. ‘You are very wise, o Astropath mine. Yes, I can happily defer to you as always.’

Caluin nodded. ‘Of course, my lord. I sincerely hope what we gleaned from Anek Krowe was correct.’

‘Have faith! Miss Krowe knows what punishments come if we found out she lied, regardless.’

‘Yes, of course.’

Tamburlaine indicated for Caluin to join him on a walk, and the Astropath followed obediently. 

‘My peers worry that I am being wasteful in my tactics to fulfil our ascension,’ Tamburlaine said. ’Would you agree?’ 

‘Not with them, my lord. But you do seem to be taking several liberties.’

‘Oh?’ Tamburlaine turned his head to gaze down at Caluin without losing stride.

‘The Rogue Traders who had assisted her. Was their escape so wise?’

‘Your sight is not infallible after all.’ Caluin noticeably bristled at this, and Tamburlaine gave a deep rattling chuckle. ‘You’re worried about the one calling to the Tech-priest, aren’t you?’

‘Many of my predictions have been obscured this way. She is as powerful as she is dangerous. ’

‘A redundant statement, even if I was not also aware of this,’ Tamburlaine said, taking a turn at a cross-section corridor so that the pair ended up in an observation wing, facing a wall of void-hardened glass. ‘Aren’t they dreadful?’ Tamburlaine asked. ‘Those blinding, roiling things. They sing to me, o Astropath mine. It’s enough to make a man sick.’

Caluin looked out into the black with his mind’s eye, recoiling at the stars of the Calixis Sector. They were so bright and so loud; an insult to an otherwise perfect face of darkness. Somewhere amongst that sea of darkness lay the world, dashed to a radioactive crater, where Bachmayer had laid her Daemon-Trigger facility. 

‘The Tech-priest is the least of our concerns’ Tamburlaine said after a great pause. Caluin turned to face him, a purely token gesture. Tamburlaine, in turn, leaned down to smile at him. ‘My brothers and sisters are the ones we must be wary of. Such is the way of our conspiracy. I don’t think we ever truly trusted one another. How could we?’

‘I suppose you could not, my Lord. Your plight is indeed a strange one.’

Tamburlaine smiled at Caluin, already picturing the violet-eyed Inquisitor blinded by the delight of receiving what she had forever yearned for since she, like each member of the so-called Ordo Necros, had lost their own child in some murky epoch of primeval times.


	9. Chapter 9

# IX.

_Inhale._

Telescopic sight: purpose built for the eye peering down it. The micro-sensors gave readouts on Hive Zinliv’s ambient temperature, humidity, air pressure, wind direction, gravity, and planetary spin.

_Exhale._

Turbo-penetrator round: locked in the chamber, alone. The minituarised cogitator targeting-spirits latched their tracing powers onto the target, leaving no chance for escape. The round itself was a hypervelocity adamantine-jacketed bullet surrounding a magno-sealed flux needle. It could pierce any armour.

_Inhale._

The creed of his Temple: ‘ _Exitus Acta Probat_.’ The outcome justifies the deed.

_Fire._

+++

Azrarach fought against the wheel of his borrowed auto-carriage as the engine block exploded, blinding him with a screen of smoke.

‘Well chaps, hold onto something!’ he cried. He ducked under the console as the road barrier raced to meet them. Ladon’s bulk coupled with the collision was enough to snap his seatbelt and send him flying through the canopy of the carriage, while Oderic and Zayn merely lunged forward as the wind was knocked from them. Of Syra, previously up front with Azrarach, there was no sign. Other cars were screeching to a halt while Ladon hauled himself over the ruined bonnet, ignoring the cries of the dying Machine Spirits. Azrarach coughed beside him, and Ladon turned to look at him.

‘Are you alright? What happened?’

‘I don’t know, Ladon! Belladonna seems to think we’re under attack!’

‘Bellado- Never mind! Get out of the car before the promethium detonates!’

Azrarach shoved open his door while Ladon maneuvered away from the barrier, trying not to have flashbacks when he regarded the height that the bridgeway hung over the Hive’s true street level. He shook his head clear and moved towards the rear of the carriage, leaving Azararch to flail his arms at approaching traffic. As he reached for the door, however, a high calibre round smashed into his hand and tore off one of his few remaining bits of flesh in the form of a finger. The impact swung his hand into the door, leaving a dent, and the shock left Ladon slumping to the ground. 

Oderic cried out and tried to open the door, only to find that the shattered mechanism would not budge. He yelled at Zayn to move out the other side. Zayn only just managed to get the door wedged against the barrier enough for him to slip out, followed by Oderic clumsily clattering onto the bridgeway surface, weighed down by his feudal plate. 

‘Oderic, try and find the bastard while I move Ladon!’ Zayn cried, leaping over the vehicle’s rear. ‘Come on Ladon you pile of scrap, get on your feet!’

Ladon’s mechadendrites were already trying to salvage his pulverised hand, which leaked a fluoro-yellow hydrocarbon soup instead of blood. He stood, with assistance from Zayn, and started to head for cover. 

‘Auspex scans record the round came from that trajectory,’ Ladon said, tracing a spare mechadendrite through the air to a distant Hive spire. ‘No thermal readings inside.’

‘Ladon, you know what that was?’ Syra asked, appearing as if from thin air once they’d lay down beside the central barrier dividing the four lanes of the bridgeway.

‘A sniper!’ Ladon replied emphatically.

‘A _Vindicare_ ,’ Syra replied. ‘That’s a Temple Assassin!’

‘A what?’

‘Show me the trajectory again?’ Syra asked. Ladon repeated the gesture without looking up, currently wrapping his hand in cloth. Syra stood, even as Zayn grabbed her in an attempt to get her to cover. He recoiled when Syra’s eyes suddenly glowed with white light.

‘Be right back,’ she said, and disappeared, leaving behind a shadowy after-image.

‘Kantor’s report didn’t mention she was a psyker,’ Ladon said, glancing at Zayn.

‘That was… something else.’

‘Sword Logic…’

Their car’s promethium tank suddenly exploded, sending a column of flame flying towards the sky. For once, the Hive spires were as stained with sooty smoke as the toiling pits of the manufactorums below.

+++

The Vindicare slid his final round into his exitus rifle. This one contained potent hellfire acid, prepared in millions of micro needles. That Tech-priest was hardly human with all those augments, but he needed to die nonetheless. His masters demanded it and… that witch!

‘This is III.LX, there is a fifth target on the field. Identity unknown. High possibility of-’

Syra leapt atop the black-clad sniper, swinging her blade down towards him. He responded by holding his rifle sidelong between the two of them. With the crackling sound of a power field, Syra severed the rifle in two but was slowed enough for the Vindicare to bring his legs together and kick Syra in the gut, launching her two metres. The Vindicare threw the rifle’s barrel at her, which she swatted away with her sword as she landed, but he used the distracting moment to quickdraw his pistol and fire. Syra was barely able to step aside in time as the bullet rocketed past her neck. The Vindicare was on his feet before she had even turned back to face him. She charged and impaled her blade up to the hilt in the Vindicare’s chest. Without flinching, he swung his pistol butt against Syra’s temple. She fell backwards as her grip on her sword slipped, but instead of hitting the floor she disappeared in another shadowy mirage. 

‘IV.XXXIII, what is your ETA?’ the Vindicare whispered, touching the side of his spymask as he scanned for the slippery witch. 

‘Six minutes,’ came a distorted growl in reply.

‘I’m moving on scene to mop up Targets Primaris through to Quaternarus,’ a hoarse female’s voice added.

The Vindicare was about to reply, but suddenly found himself within a maelstrom of darkness that battered and blinded him. His spymask was no help against the unnatural power, and even lost function completely as its cogitators overloaded. When the darkness ended, his body screamed at him of searing wounds, but all he could see was his own blood spraying from his shredded body, and Syra’s swords spinning through the air. As his vision failed him for real this time, his final image was of an unreasonably excited girl with fangs shining in her giddy smile.

Syra touched her finger to the micro-bead she’d borrowed from Ladon. ‘Target down. Commandeer a new vehicle and I’ll be right back.’

‘Copy that,’ said Zayn, setting the vox to speaker-mode so that Ladon could hear. Ladon stood and stalked towards the nearest intact vehicle, holding his rosette high for all to see. The time for subtlety had passed long ago. An Emperor-fearing noble family abandoned their luxury limousine just as sirens from Arbites riot vehicles sounded in the distance. Ladon swore to himself, and moved towards a Repressor-model Rhino chassis. The dozer-bladed vehicle came to a rumbling halt not far from him, and an enforcer of the Adeptus Arbites stuck his carapace-helmeted head out of the top hatch, his hands moving towards the grenade launcher attached to its pintle mount.

‘Attention citizen!’ the Arbitrator cried. ‘Multiple third-party individuals have reported one or more of your recent actions as being inappropriate. Once a citizen is notified in such a manner, said citizen is reviewed by members of the Adeptus Arbites in accordance to the Book of Judgment. Upon review, we have determined that the following actions are in violation of the Book of Judgement: engaging in lethal discharge of firearms in a public area, multiple counts of civil property destruction, and reckless driving!’

‘I’m Inquisition you bucket-headed meddlers!’ Ladon called back, amplifying his vocal implants to match the volume of a laud hailer while he gestured towards the Arbitrator with his rosette clenched in his fist.

The Arbitrator paused, then ducked his head below the hatch. The Repressor’s side door slammed open, and a squad of six more Arbitrators fully clad in armour, bearing riot shields and stun mauls, filed out to form a half circle before Ladon. Ladon glanced behind them to see Oderic, Zayn, and Azrarach begin to make their way towards him.

‘I said: I am Inquisition! You will take me to the planetary governor’s residence immediately!’

One of the Arbitrators stepped forward. ‘Or course, my lord. Please, step inside our vehicle.’

‘And my retinue?’ Ladon pointed towards his fellow Rogue Traders, once again joined by Syra. 

‘We don’t have enough space. Another transport is on its way, however.’

‘You can walk. I am commandeering your vehicle, in the Emperor’s name.’

The Arbitrator’s mouth opened in a bid to argue, but Ladon stepped forwards, towering half a metre above him.

‘Obstructing an Inquisitor’s work is rights for far worse than simple execution. Your family will likely bear the overflow of your heresies against the Golden Throne.’

The Arbitrator shrunk back towards his own ranks. Ladon was about to make another move when another trio of Rhinos arrived on the scene, smashing through abandoned cars in their bid to reach the ground zero of this crime scene. The Arbitrator glanced behind him and seemed to regain some confidence, gesturing two of his comrades forward. Ladon suddenly found four boltguns aimed at him even as the two other Arbitrators seized his arms and dragged him into the Repressor. All but the sergeant followed him in before the vehicle started to move once more, indeed headed for the governor’s palace. 

‘Ladon!’ Oderic cried. Zayn grabbed his arm before he could go charging into that sergeant with his sword drawn. Oderic turned to see multiple squads of Arbitrators and Enforcers moving to surround them. The recently returned Syra meanwhile smiled, drawing her blades, and Zayn found he had to grab her as well before she got herself, or all of them killed.

It was Azrarach who drew two of his hand cannons, swept his leg across the dust-covered road as he took a fighting stance, and fired five rounds rapid from each weapon into the skulls of the Arbitrators. While the survivors scrambled to react, Azrarach dropped each hand cannon to the floor and drew two more, turning sideways and holding his arms in opposite directions. He fired Belladonna blindly into the sergeant’s head behind him while he swiftly emptied his other cannon into the second wave of Arbitrators, dropped that empty gun, and then swung around to open fire with Belladonna while he drew a third pistol to fire into the gunners in the Rhino top hatches.

The bridgeway-turned-battlefield fell silent as Azrarach calmly reloaded Belladonna and holstered her, before one by one reloading the cylinders of his discarded weapons.

Zayn suddenly fell to his knees, clutching his head. ‘Frak… Az calm that down!’

‘Calm down what?’ Azrarach replied. ‘Belladonna did what she had to.’

‘Not that, you idiot: Your null aura! You’re doing my head in…’

Azrarach merely looked confused. Oderic and Syra meanwhile spun to face a figure clad in a synskin suit with an arcane apparatus bolted onto his skull helmet.

In a warped growl that scratched at the ear, the Culexus announced to some unseen ally, ‘This is IV.XXXIII. Engaging Targets Secundus through Quarternarus plus the witch.’

+++

Ladon stared down the barrels of three boltguns from the Arbitrators seated across from him, while the other two aimed at either side of his head. 

‘Last thing Governor Dandleton wanted was the fuckin’ Inquisition nosing around,’ one of them growled. 

Ladon remained silent.

‘He’s gonna have a lot of questions for you, cogboy. Don’t think some tin badge is gonna keep you safe. I know exactly what you are, you facist piece of-’

‘How many ships do your Xenos allies have?’ Ladon interrupted.

‘Wha’?’

‘I have multiple Gothic and Lunar-class cruisers incoming from my fleet. The Ordo Xenos will wipe this den of scum and villainy from the face of the Imperium.’

‘Groxshit,’ the face of the group growled, shifting as if to fire his boltgun, though Ladon knew he was only trying to prove… What was the meatbag expression? Something about the brass content of his genitals. Meanwhile one of the Arbitrators next to him raised a finger to his helmet vox.

‘This is XII.IX. Engaging Target Primaris,’ she said.

‘Oi, Jinzia, what’re you blabbing about?’

There was a flash of green light, a shade oddly specific that Ladon recognised, and suddenly three of the other Arbitrators were bleeding out on the floor. The Arbitrator named Jinzia lunged across the short distance towards Ladon with a blade emerging from her forearm. Ladon lashed out with a mechadendrite, landing a blow through the Arbitrator’s visor with a piercing implement from his medicae module. Ladon threw himself sideways as Jinzia screamed in pain from her burst eyeball. Her blade pierced the wall of the Repressor behind him as if it was parchment. The last living Arbitrator opened fire with his boltgun. Jinzia twisted her body in a completely inhuman way, almost snakelike, leaving the bolt rounds to detonate against the rear door and shower each occupant in sparks and metal scraps. 

Suddenly, Jinzia was out of her Arbitrator uniform to reveal a figure clad from head to toe in shiny black synskin, sporting a long braid of silver hair. The Callidus drew a strange pistol and pointed it at the Arbitrator’s head. He suddenly screamed as a wave of emerald lightning shredded his neural synapses. The Callidus turned away from his corpse in time for Ladon to swing his cybernetic fist into her head. She fell backwards, colliding with the opposite wall of the Repressor, but sprung off from it and came at Ladon again with her phase-blade. He sent a mechadendrite to intercept, but she cleaved clean through it. Ladon caught her wrist before the blade could lodge through his throat.

‘You’re not with the Governor, then?’ Ladon growled as he fought against her. His cybernetics and synthmuscle creaked as they fought against the assassin’s similarly augmented strength. She began to move her neural shredder towards his head, but Ladon swung his medicae unit at the cord trailing to the power pack on the Callidus’ back. There was a flash and wave of acrid smoke as the weapon lost power. The Callidus discarded the pistol and instead grabbed Ladon’s head by the tubes that ran from his mouth and levered him towards her still immobilised sword arm. Ladon tried to lift his other hand towards her, but found the injury left it largely immobile lest a major pain response overwhelm his nerve signals. Instead he lifted his legs to press against the Callidus. She merely arched herself over him, now pressing against him with her blade from above, while pushing his chin from below.

‘Last chance to talk,’ Ladon said. The Callidus only pushed harder, so Ladon instead slipped his body upwards against the Callidus, and deployed the Cognis heavy stubber mounted in his gut cavity. With staccato roars, a volley of heavy calibre rounds tore point blank through the Callidus’ stomach. As she recoiled, Ladon pushed against her, walking his fire up into her chest and then through her throat and head. Her body jerked violently as her head erupted in an explosion of gore. Ladon shoved her limp corpse off him and paused for a moment. He removed the straps for her power pack and eased her bladed gauntlet from her wrist. He knew Necron tech when he saw it, and that blade was made of living metal. Ladon logged this fact away, erstwhile stowing the weapon on his person along with her discarded handgun. Finally, Ladon took a boltgun from one of the dead Arbitrators and moved towards the driver’s cabin of the Repressor.

‘Turn this thing around,’ he ordered, audibly unlocking his weapon’s safety as he held the muzzle against the driver’s head.

+++

Flickering like an umbral wraith, the Culexus advanced slowly, watching uninterested as Syra and Oderic began to recoil from his unnatural aura of soulessness that was practically tangible in the air. Although Azrarach could easily dampen the potency of Zayn’s powers, there was always only ever a hint of wrongness about him, offset by his naturally cheerful nature. This Culexus, however, was sheer terror born and bred as a weapon against psykers and the other spawn of the Immaterium. 

‘There is a fifth target here, but only the one witch we were informed of,’ the Culexus said. It paused suddenly, then added, ‘XII.IX? III.LX?’ Apparently he got no response and clenched his fist, uttering an eerie growl. Upon his helmet, a large metal aperture began to unfurl, revealing a glowing green ‘eye’ mounted beside his skull. Syra managed to leap in front of the prone Zayn and held her blades in a cross formation before her, just in time to intercept a sweeping beam of negative energy. 

‘Azrarach, get Zayn out of here!’ Syra yelled. She shrieked before Azrarach could reply when the power fields on her swords overloaded. The psychic beam swept over her, throwing her aside while her swords clattered to the ground as little more than smouldering, twisted slivers of metal. Azrarach turned to the Culexus, he and Zayn no longer shielded by Syra, and raised Belladonna. He fired three times, but the Culexus seemed to flicker briefly. The bullets slammed into a lightpost behind the assassin. 

The Culexus’ animus speculum began to charge again, when Oderic charged forward with an Avalonian warcry on his lips. The Culexus swiveled his baleful gaze towards him and Oderic suddenly halted in his tracks as his knees turned to jelly and his warblade began to slip from his fingers. The Culexus dropped suddenly into a wide stance, and pounced at Oderic. His fist slammed into the knight’s gut, snapping a rib with a resounding crouch. Oderic fell backwards, bereft of breath and struggling to swallow any more air. 

‘Bastard!’ Syra yelled. She raised her hand above her head and hurled it forward as she stepped towards the assassin. An orb of roiling darkness flew towards the Culexus, to which he raised his arm briefly before firing the animus speculum. Syra flipped forward, lighting a pale green fire in her hands when she landed. From this, she pulled a blade made of dark, pitted bone. The Culexus chuckled.

‘Your Warp magicks are worthless against me.’

‘I am far sharper than the Warp,’ Syra retorted, holding her blade in both hands as she swept towards the Culexus. She swung again and again in a devastating flurry of blows, but could only seem to hit the smoky air around the Culexus as he flickered back and forth with the power of his Etherium aegis. However, the assassin seemed surprisingly careful to actively dodge each attack, despite his earlier brag.

‘What secrets of the Dark Age do you hold?’ he pondered, before delivering an uppercut blow to the jaw. Syra staggered under the concussive blow and fell backwards, but not before making an odd gesture. The Culexus opened his animus to fire once more, when a strange creature, a towering four-armed Taken not unlike a monstrous genestealer, suddenly grabbed him from behind. It lifted the Culexus and threw him into the ground, before it drew a pair of dark, star-filled cutlasses with its second pair of limbs, and made to impale the prone assassin. The Culexus rolled aside, hardly stunned from the attack, and leapt to his feet, wondering what kind of daemon this thing was. The Taken raised one of its upper arms in a motion similar to Syra’s earlier attacks, and sure enough hurled an orb of blinding darkness at the Culexus. 

This time the assassin staggered heavily, enough for Oderic to slide his warblade through his back. The Culexus gurgled as Oderic tore the blade free and swung again for a decapitating blow. This time it was able to dodge, but only fell prey to the twin slash follow up delivered by the Taken. As his body fell apart, the Culexus fired a final beam from his helmet, screaming about ‘XXX.XI!’ The beam flew upwards and cut through the Taken’s chest and head, causing it to violently implode into itself. The Culexus meanwhile fell to the ground as his helmet overloaded and detonated, leaving a smouldering corpse, and at last alleviating the aura of dread.

Azrarach’s head craned out from around one of the Rhinos. ‘Is it safe now?’

‘Almost,’ Oderic growled, helping the disoriented Syra to her feet. He was clearly indicating the approaching Repressor, throwing up dust and debris under its tracks before it skidded to a stop in the middle of a hasty turn. The top hatch popped open and Ladon’s head appeared.

‘Get in, meatbags. We’re going purging!’

With the former driver dumped onto the street, Azrarach took the wheel of the Repressor while Ladon moved into the passenger compartment. He was surprised to see Syra excitedly squeal at the sight of the dead assassin.

‘What?’ he asked her.

‘You fought a Callidus!?’ 

‘Uh, I suppose. I am unaware of this classification. This opponent was indeed neutralised,’ Ladon said. ‘I recovered her weapons.’

Syra tried to contain her further glee, glowing red in the face. ‘C-could I have the sword?’

‘First, why do you know so much about these figures?’ Ladon asked.

‘I’m uh… it sounds embarrassing when I say it like this, but I’m a huge fan of the legends. The Officio Assassinorum! I once dreamt of joining their ranks but… well, Kantor ensured I never would.’

‘Officio Assassinorum…’ Ladon paused, trying to access his databanks. ‘All records are Redacted.’

‘Ah, they’re a myth for all but the highest ranking agents of the Imperium. Inquisitors, Astartes, the High Lords, etc.’

‘How do _you_ know, then?’

‘My Death Cult was associated with their Temples. They used our clans as recruiting grounds on occasion. To think I’d ever face them in battle…’

Ladon at last handed over the sword and its power pack. Syra squealed again and began attaching the straps across her chest before sliding the gauntlet onto her wrist.

‘She wasn’t working with the Governor,’ Ladon said.

‘Of course not!’ Syra smirked, busy staring at her shiny new toy. ‘As if a Hive World governor would be able to requisition a Temple Assassin.’

‘So, Ladon,’ Zayn interjected, ‘those Arbitrators were sent by Dandleton to halt our investigation, right? But you’re saying the Temple Assassins came from someone else’s orders?’

‘The Callidus attacked and killed the other four Arbitrators in the back here with me. They have their own agenda.’

‘Tamburlaine. It has to be,’ said Oderic.

‘It can’t,’ Zayn replied. ‘How in the Warp could he have found us here already, let alone sent three assassins after us in less than a day?’

Ladon tried folding his arms, but could only wince from his injury. ‘He’s something else. Everything has been working according to his plans. He’s like a Diviner, but somehow… worse.’

‘How do you know that?’ Zayn asked.

Ladon bowed his head, focusing on a sound in his mind. ‘Observation: Tamburlaine appears to be either on-par with our expedition or possesses future knowledge of us. Hypothesis: Inquisitor Tamburlaine did not have to leave our deaths to chance with his use of Cyclonic Torpedoes. He has already foreseen multiple events we have followed and will follow. 

‘Data: His arrival on MAD-8627149 immediately after our exploration of the facility. Data: Number of individuals known to hold information on that location: Eight, other than Thrones and us. Likelihood of Tamburlaine interrogating one of these individuals: 38%. Data: Likelihood of Tamburlaine arriving within the timeframe of our expedition within the time since the rediscovery of the facility: 0.0087%. Data: Placement of Temple Assassins within Hive World Zinliv before our own knowledge of our arrival.

‘Analysis: Overwhelming statistics indicate that Tamburlaine is utilising sorcerous and/or anomalous means to pursue us. Analysis: There is however no data collected to objectively support this hypothesis, only dissuade an exact rejection.’

Zayn frowned. ‘You’ve gone robotic. But still, even the most powerful Astropaths with their Divination disciplines and Emperor’s Tarot cannot possibly predict such a precise series of events. Maybe one of the knife-ears, but Tamburlaine and even the Astropath that was with him were definitely human.’

Syra retracted the blade into the gauntlet, dissolving it like a liquid as she finally looked up to the others. ‘Tamburlaine might be like me. If he follows the Sword Logic, he might possess paracausal prophetic knowledge.’

Ladon leaned close to her, as if trying to inspect her. She frowned at the scrutiny, but Ladon spoke nonetheless. ‘I would like you to teach me this Sword Logic.’

‘Ladon!’ Oderic cried. ‘I forbid this! Your xenarite tendencies are one thing, but now you want to dabble in the witchcrafts of unknowable heretics?’

Syra wheeled to glare at Oderic, opening her mouth to ready a tirade, but Ladon silenced her with a gesture. ‘There is no witchcraft or heresy involved. From what Syra tells us, the Sword Logic is a metaphysical constant that arises from a certain understanding of reality.’

‘More or less,’ Syra admitted.

‘Yeah, you realise psykers also base their powers on metaphysics that affect reality?’ Zayn replied.

‘Incorrect. psykers channel the Warp. The Sword Logic’s only conduit is manipulation of a standard spacetime model.’

‘You’re talking completely out of your ass here, Ladon. I have to stand with Oderic.’

‘Incorrect. I am basing my assumptions on evidence relating to powers of the C’tan. They were unable to channel or enter the Warp, but could still bend reality.’

‘C’tan? What the frak are you talking about?’

‘He’s right though,’ said Syra. ‘That Culexus Assassin who attacked us was a Blank, like Azrarach. My paracausal powers were still fully functioning against him.’

‘You summoned that Taken, didn’t you?’ Oderic added.

‘I did. It is my champion, in a way.’

Oderic let out a long string of Avalonian swears. ‘You two are insane! I should end you right here, in the Emperor’s name!’

‘Ladon, you’re playing with fire here,’ Zayn said after a moment of hesitation. ‘And you,’ he indicated Syra, ‘are a blatant affront to the God Emperor.’

Syra’s cheeks began to burn red as she screwed her face up into a snarl, silently asking, _How dare you?_

‘This isn't about whether your weird magic really is the Warp or not,’ Zayn continued, leaning forward to glance between Ladon and Oderic. ‘It's about the fact that it's dangerous regardless, and well within the realm of madmen. That is heresy in itself.’

‘This could be the key to everything!’ Ladon protested. ‘To save Thrones, to stop Bachmeyer, to defeat the Tyrant Star!’

‘And we haven’t forgotten our mission,’ Zayn countered. ‘But you’re really starting to blur your ends and means.’

Ladon settled slightly, trying to rearrange his logic. ‘What do you mean?’

‘What I mean is,’ Zayn shifted his gaze to Syra, ‘I think we need to find more conventional help in our crusade.’

‘You don’t want me,’ Syra said plainly. 

‘You don’t belong with us,’ Zayn replied.

Syra balled both her hands into fists, but placed them in her lap, taking a deep breath. ‘All I want is to rescue Thrones.’

‘Enough with your Sword Logic groxshit, then.’

‘Tamburlaine does not sound like your usual foe. Especially not if he’s related to Bachmeyer or the Tyrant Star. Faith, steel, and bolt rounds can only get you so far.’

Zayn studied the grim expression on her face, recognising some extra layer of anger beneath the determined visage. Anger at what though? He realised now wouldn’t exactly be the time for probing, so he sighed and leaned back into his seat. ‘We still need to find a way to get back to the _Pride of Gladtonius_. So let’s sort that out first.’

Ladon twisted to access the vox panel next to the driver’s compartment. ‘Azrarach, how close are we to the governor’s palace?’

Azrarach’s voice came back from a tinny-sounding speaker, ‘Not far, but it appears the street is a little blocked up with people fighting each other. Arbitrators have formed a shield wall against a gang of rioters!’

‘Oh dear,’ said Syra. ‘I think our little conflict might have triggered those rebels early. So much for three days.’

The Repressor rocked suddenly from rapid impacts along the side of the hull.

‘Which side do we throw our lot in with as our cover story?’ Ladon asked the crew. ‘The governor or the rebels?’

‘I don’t think it matters,’ Azrarach’s voice replied. ‘There are some other guys killing everything.’

‘Tamburlaine?’

‘Belladonna says they’re something else…’


	10. Chapter 10

#  X.

The lone Arbitrator still on the bridgeway pileup stood up only once his former Repressor had vanished into the dust and smoke in the distance. He brushed himself off and activated his vox.

‘Uh, this is Arbitrator Hawthorne. The Inquisitor and his retinue have stolen an Arbites vehicles and are heading towards the governor’s palace, over.’

He only received static over the vox channel. He tried again, ‘Uh, does anyone read me, over?’ He frowned and slid his helmet off to inspect it for damage. While staring down at it, something screamed over him, whipping the dust around him into a furious whirlwind. He raised his eyes and threw up his arm to shield from the debris as he squinted against the glare of the setting sun. A distant dark speck was rapidly fading out of view in the direction of the palace spire.

‘What the fuck was that?’ He fumbled through his belt for a pair of magnoculars, when another two objects screamed over his head. He froze, having reflexively held his helmet over the top of his head. At last he lifted the magnoculars and gazed upon the trio of specks on the horizon. The magnification did little to help him identify them beyond their shape. He could not recognise the strange, elongated constructions of sharp angles and metal plates. They sort of resembled flying nautical vehicles, but that was absurd. 

This time he heard another jet engine approaching from behind, and turned. He only managed a glimpse at the strange pallid figure standing atop a small flying platform, before a barbed hook slung itself around his leg. Hawthorne cried out as he was flipped onto his stomach and briefly dragged along the bridgeway surface before being lifted into the air. Still holding onto his helmet, he tried screaming into his vox for support. The creature atop the skyboard laughed in a cruel alien tongue and leaned forward to accelerate. The Arbitrator looked around desperately, but only saw four more of the airborne killers level out in formation with the leader. Wearing dark leathers that covered only half of their pale wiry forms, the Dark Eldar hellions cried and hollered their curses into the sky.

Hawthorne twisted and turned, trying to reach for the stub gun on his thigh. When he at last managed to free it from the holster, he aimed and fired at the xenos that held him captive. Dangling beneath a skyboard and travelling at insane speeds, he only managed to clip the tip of the wing, resulting in nothing more than chipped paint. The pilot turned and gave a wicked grin that stretched to the pointed ears on either side of his face. Hawthorne tried to fire again, but the xenos only released the hook mechanism. Hawthorne screamed as he fell, before he slammed into the top of a moving Repressor with a sickening crash.

Moments later, Ladon appeared out of the top hatch and began opening fire at the passing Hellions. He managed to knock one out of the sky with a lucky spray, but had to duck when a squadron behind him lay down a hail of splinter fire. The venomed barbs pinged off his own armour and the Repressor’s hull, but Ladon knew his luck would hardly hold against further volumes of fire. He slammed the hatch shut and dropped back to Azarach.

‘Just drive straight through their ranks,’ he said, indicating the panicked Arbites and rebel forces trying to take cover from the Dark Eldar’s airborne assaults.

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘We’ve got a dozer blade, it’s fine,’ Ladon replied. He then moved back and began his prayers to bolster the vehicle’s Machine Spirit. Azrarach slammed his foot on the accelerator and the ceramite beast lunged forward. Wrestling Arbitrators and rebels leapt aside, forgetting their hostilities to each other in the brief moment of base terror. The vehicle rumbled forward through the rioting lines, most of which were still rather unaware of the xenos interference even as Hellions and Raiders swooped down to rake them with splinter fire or sever heads and limbs with vicious hellglavies. 

‘Might want to hold on something!’ Azarach spoke into the vox as the Repressor raced towards the brass doors of the governor’s palace. Even Ladon ducked as the dozer blade peeled apart the palace doors before lurching up the stairs as rockcrete and bent metal cascaded over it. Panicked lasgun fire from the two guards who resided inside scorched the Repressor’s paint. The guards threw themselves aside while the vehicle ground onwards through the reception desk and then halfway through the wall behind it before its momentum finally stalled.

When Oderic, Zayn, and Syra burst out of the rear door with their blades drawn, the guards threw their weapons to the floor and held their hands above their heads. Ladon and Azrarach crawled out moments later, just as several of the rebels outside rushed through the shattered portal and opened fire indiscriminately. The melee fighters rushed to counter them while Azrarach and Ladon made for the stairs leading to Dandleton’s office.

Suddenly, the ceiling detonated. An eagle-studded chandelier plunged onto the surging throng of rebels. A Dark Eldar vessel now lodged into the palace disgorged a force of Kabalite warriors, sailing down from the ceiling on thin drop lines. 

+++

Dandleton raised a glass of Amasec to his lips, fighting against his nerves to keep the drink steady. The Kabalite Archon over his shoulder chuckled at the gesture.

‘What a shame that you could not keep a tighter grip on those barbarians of yours,’ the Archon rasped with a rather adept grasp of the Gothic tongue. 

Dandleton wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and lowered the glass. ‘I could’ve rectified this. But it's too late now that your murderers have jumped into the fray.’

The Archon made a cooing noise like a cat purring through a spinning fan. ‘I thought you would have realised that I’ve grown tired of letting you get away with drip feeding me, when you have plenty of plump produce ripe for picking.’

‘Tezakyth, this is too far!’ Dandleton yelled, slamming his empty glass on his desk. He stood to face the twisted, garishly armoured figure. ‘What you’ve done here has doomed this entire world for the both of us!’

‘There are greener pastors yonder,’ Tezakyth replied softly. Dandleton’s resolve evaporated almost instantly. ‘A nice quick raid for the fattest prizes, and then my forces will vanish. However your Imperium wishes to punish you, I could care less.’

Dandleton cracked his teeth together as a vein bulged in his forehead, and then suddenly drew a laspistol. Tezakyth moved with a disturbingly liquid grace, swiftly severing Dandleton’s arm with his huskblade. The severed limb fell into a pile of dust while Dandleton screamed and tripped backwards onto his desk. Tekazyth raised a splinter pistol and pressed it against Dandleton’s chin. He leant in, making patronising noises in an effort to get Dandleton to stop bawling.

‘Shhh, everything is alright. I won’t kill you for a very, very long time.’

Astropath Meing continued to cower in the corner with her knees curled up to her chest, while her blind gaze remained fixed on an unremarkable part of the carpet. 

When the door burst open, Tezakyth glanced up with visible confusion at the Tech-priest and Navy steward with guns aimed at him.

‘What are-’

Ladon and Azrarach filled him with holes. The shells from the Arbites boltgun detonated inside the Archon’s body, tearing his torso in half as the xenos sank to the ground. A spray of dark ichorous blood painted Dandleton’s frozen face. He took several heavy breaths as he twisted around to face his saviours.

‘Oh! Oh, Inquisitor Danser! The Emperor surely protects!’

Azrarach fired a round from Belladonna into Dandleton’s head, blowing bone fragments and brain matter across the opposite wall. Astropath Meing screamed. Ladon wheeled on Azrarach. 

‘What in the Emperor’s name was that for?’

‘What? He was a xenos-sympathiser and a traitor! I knew it, you knew it, Belladonna knew it...’

Ladon stared at him with what must’ve been disbelief, and then chose to disregard him entirely and moved past to reach the Astropath.

‘You! I already know your governor ordered you to betray me. Now I am asking you to do the right thing.’

Between sobs, Meing agreed. She staggered to her feet.

‘I-I cannot do much amidst this… this bloodshed. I would need… need some place far away from the fighting where I could make contact with the Empyrean energies…’

Ladon looked around. ‘Is there a panic room within the palace? Do you have a landing pad with a shuttle or lighter we could take?’

‘I think there is-’

An explosion against the nearby wall silenced Meing forever. With a howl, the fourth member of the Officio Assassinorum Execution Force leapt through the slag-rimmed hole in the wall, firing a burst of bolt rounds from his pistol. The glowing red lights from his skull shaped helmet pierced the cloud of smoke, scanning the room until it made contact with Ladon. With a screech, the Eversor assassin reached over his shoulder for a power sword, before he charged at Ladon. 

Ladon threw himself aside, and scrambled to make it out the door back to the main hallway. The Eversor hurtled past where Ladon had been, colliding with a bookcase and sending its contents flying through the room. He screeched again as Azrarach fired at him while moving backwards to get Ladon out the door.

‘Assassin!’ Ladon screamed as he and Azrarach hurtled down the stairs back towards the Repressor. Some of the Dark Eldar warriors that had overrun the foyer turned to fire at them. 

‘What kind?’ Syra called out as she removed one of the Eldar’s heads.

Ladon and Azrarach only replied by screaming as the Eversor leapt through the doorway, letting loose another unintelligible warcry.

‘WRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!’

‘Alright,’ Zayn replied as Ladon ducked back inside the Repressor, ‘leave this bastard to me.’ He grabbed the Kabalite warrior he was duelling, and swung him across his own body to act as a shield against a hail of splinters. Tossing the dead xenos aside, he sprinted towards the Eversor, deftly dodging past his fleeing allies who were already seeking cover. The Eversor swung at Zayn with his power sword, which collided with Zayn’s own blade. They pressed against each other, causing the powerfields to spark and crackle as the arcane energies ran over each other. The Eversor suddenly slipped towards Zayn’s guard, raking a set of clawed fingers across Zayn’s shoulder and chest. Zayn staggered backwards, briefly glancing at the deep, ragged wounds. Blood flowed over his armour, but a sickly green liquid dripped from the tips of the Eversor’s claws. Already, Zayn could feel his body becoming sluggish as his brain struggled against the neurotoxins. 

_ Damn, looks like I’m going to have to really commit to this. _

Zayn focussed on his injured body with what parts of his mind weren’t blacking out. Like a spark suddenly ignited, his wounds began to reknit. He leapt backwards from the Eversor’s follow up attacks, and swung back with his force sword. His blade lodged into the Eversor’s ribcage, and Zayn smiled. Like he had with his fight against Syra, he channeled his refreshed will through the blade and a bolt of psychic lightning burst from its edge and leaped across the Eversor’s muscled body. 

The assassin screamed, pulling away from Zayn to clutch its head. Zayn took the opportunity to once again focus another power, drawing upon his connection with the Warp. This time, he found himself already mentally taxed by his previous ability. He barely had much of a chance to recover when the Eversor’s sword came crashing down against a hurried parry. Zayn pushed the Eversor backwards and while he staggered, stepped sideways and swung both swords towards the Eversor’s stomach. The assassin gave a feverish growl and staggered backwards, glancing down at the blood pouring from the wound.

Only, the flow seemed to slow almost immediately, and the Eversor took several shuddering breaths. Their helmet’s muzzle emitted clouds of hot misting breath as he hunched over. Beneath the synskin coating, the Eversor’s muscles bulged and shuddered before he raised his head to the ceiling and screeched once more. He leapt into the air, suddenly attracting a share of the Dark Eldar’s attention, and landed atop Zayn. They wrestled briefly before Zayn realised he was completely outmatched. The Eversor’s claws pierced his arm and began injecting more of the neurotoxin, even as he tried to keep the sword at bay with his own. 

_ Frak it. _

Zayn’s eyes glowed bright enough to make even the Eversor flinch. With a roar, a beam of incandescent bio-lightning surged outwards from Zayn’s eyes and mouth, setting the Eversor ablaze. The assassin screamed and tried to scramble off Zayn’s prone form, but even as he clawed at his head it began to melt to slag. Zayn’s smite died down, leaving smoke trailing from his face and several raised blood vessels. He rolled the charred Eversor’s corpse off him and the staircase. Zayn gulped down great buckets of air. From the floor below sounded an explosion as the biochemical cocktail in the Eversor’s bloodstream detonated. Zayn felt himself sliding down the stairs, and looked over to see Azrarach dragging him to cover. He smiled and closed his eyes, letting his consciousness join the starry void.

Ladon meanwhile had lit enough incense beside the engine of the Repressor to finally get its Machine Spirits placated and responsive. As he opened the rear hatch, great clouds of the scented smoke billowed forth.

‘Get in! We lost the Astropath!’

‘What?’ Oderic cried. He bellowed as he cut straight through a Kabalite warrior, and then charged at another while he made his way towards Ladon.

‘What’s plan B?’ Syra asked, following Azrarach inside the vehicle. Oderic joined them a moment after pinning a Dark Eldar against the hull and eviscerating him.

‘Drive, Azararach!’ Ladon ordered, taking Zayn from his arms and laying him on the floor to begin medicae treatment. Azrarach backed the Repressor out from the wall, crunched over several bodies, and soon had it back on the bridgeway. Apparently the sun had set quite rapidly, for there were great shadows cast over everything.

‘Damn it, where are my antitoxins when I need them…’ Ladon muttered.

‘Are… these them?’ Syra asked, lifting Ladon’s previously severed mechadendrite, upon which hung a rack of vials.

‘Yes! Good, good.’ He injected a fair dosage into Zayn and then moved on to repair the deep gashes. He paused when he realised he only had one functioning hand and no appropriate mechadendrite.

‘Allow me,’ said Syra, switching places with him. ‘I’ve been practising!’

Ladon winced as she sloppily sutured the claw wounds. ‘Slow down! Haste does nothing! Why are you using simple running on such a long incision?’

Syra could only make increasingly distressed noises as her stress rose and her cheeks burned brighter under Ladon’s berations. She jumped at one point when jet engines roared over the Repressor and a laud hailer ordered them to halt immediately.

‘In the name of the Emperor’s Inquisition, cease all motion and exit the vehicle!’

‘Wait a minute, they can’t do that!  _ I’m  _ the Inquisition!’ Ladon said, standing up and looking around for some kind of answer.

‘You’re only pretending to be the Inquisition,’ Oderic pointed out.

‘Shut up.’

‘Ladon, sir, should I comply?’ Azrarach sounded from the vox.

‘What type of engine is that, a Valkyrie? Yes I think so. Alright, I’ll take a look… Oderic make sure she doesn’t murder Zayn while I’m gone!’ Ladon moved once more into the driver’s cabin, likely leaving Syra about to cry. Regardless, he soon appeared out of the top of the Repressor once Azrarach had cut the acceleration. He raised his arm to shield his eyes before they had properly adjusted to a blinding spotlight amidst the twilight.

‘Tech-priest Ladon 47490-5,’ the Valkyrie laud hailer continued, ‘you are under arrest on suspicion of practising forbidden arts. You and your retinue shall be disarmed and taken aboard the  _ Parthenope _ . You have 15 seconds to exit your vehicle. Any failure to comply will result in immediate execution.’

‘Oh no…’ Ladon said aloud upon having seen what truly cast shadows upon the Hive. Within the Hive’s orbit, forming its own localised eclipse, flew a truly immense Victory-class Imperial Battleship. Meanwhile the side doors of the Valkyrie slid open to disgorge a squadron of Stormtroopers, sailing gracefully towards the ground via grav-chute. They quickly surrounded the Repressor, leaving Ladon no doubt as to where a dozen hot-shot lasguns were aimed. Ladon clambered out of the hatch and slid down the side of the Repressor. When he landed heavily, he raised both hands above his head.

‘Drop all your weapons!’ one of the Stormtroopers demanded as he stepped forward, gesturing with his lasgun to punctuate his authority.

Ladon tossed both the arbites boltgun and his wrist-mounted storm bolter to his feet. He also detached the ammunition feed for his heavy stubber and manually ejected the loaded cartridge. Two Stormtroopers approached him slowly.

‘I have injured onboard. There was a fight with rebel elements and Dark Eldar that I had worked to obstruct. I am an Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos, you know.’

‘We’ve been informed otherwise, and also ordered to disregard any contrary statements you’d have to say on the matter.’

‘There is a man inside that vehicle who has been poisoned, and I also have a crippled hand, as you can see!’ Ladon gestured at one of the Stormtroopers now right next to him, both of whom were patting his robes down for additional weaponry. One found the broken neural shredder and tossed it to the pile on the floor.

The lead Scion continued, ‘Your comrades will receive whatever care is needed to keep them alive.’

‘That is all I-’

Even with the metal surrounding his skull, the impact of a lasgun to the back of his head was enough to send Ladon into unconsciousness.

+++

_ A small woman, hardly more than a girl let alone a fully fledged adept-scribe of the Administratum, banged loudly on Ladon’s door aboard the  _ Blade of Abaraxas.

_ ‘Go away, Azrarach!’ _

_ ‘I’m not here to serve you dinner, Ladon you oaf, I am here to get an accurate debriefing of the previous mission!’ _

_ There was a long delay, followed by crashing and banging of things on the floor being moved or stepped around, before at last the Tech-priest appeared to open the door. He eyed up the dark-haired youth. If he hadn’t recently finished his collection of cybernetic augmentations, his expression might’ve been recognisable. As it stood, the scribe only realised he was in a good mood when he spoke. _

_ ‘Come on in! I’ve been analysing the contents of that Dark Age storage device for some time now, and would like a second opinion on it!’ _

_ ‘No, Ladon I don’t care about  _ that _ part of the mission.’ She could only sigh as Ladon waded once more into the depths of his quarters. ‘Do you not have any lights on?’ she groaned as she walked in after him.  _

_ Ladon turned back to her, eliciting an eye roll at the way his eyes glowed bright blue. She took another step forward and shrieked as her shin caught on something that made her topple forward. _

_ ‘Careful!’ Ladon cried. ‘Those lasguns have only just been cleaned and blessed!’ _

_ ‘Why do you have a crate full of lasguns!?’ _

_ ‘Most of them are leftovers from adjusting my gauss flayer,’ Ladon answered. _

_ ‘Wow, that’s totally heresy.’ _

_ ‘Bah! I have purified the xenos tech with Imperial patterns.’ _

_ ‘Ladon! Tell me what the hell happened on that party ship!’ _

_ ‘You mean about the Avatar? Krowe already chewed me out over that. How was I meant to know that a man wearing a grox mask in a casino vault’s stasis chamber was a transcendental entity?’ _

_ ‘Yes I mean about the Avatar! Haven’t you read a single thing I’ve included in my research!?’ _

_ There was a solid pause that hung in the air between them. _

_ ‘No.’ _

_ ‘Oh my God, Ladon! Oh my Emperor or Omnissiah, I don’t care just… oh my God!’ _

_ ‘I prefer Omnissiah,’ Ladon admitted. _

_ The scribe dug through her robes, eventually emerging with her dataslate. ‘I’ve sent an updated version of this to every member of the warband after every mission we complete! And apparently not you, or Azararach, or Oderic, or Lark, or Stroia, or Selora, or even freaking Krowe bother reading it!’ _

_ Ladon took a brief look at the file. ‘You have not completed the correct Rite for the Link of Sharing.’ _

_ ‘What do you mean?’ _

_ ‘This is a text file and not compatible with either vox encoded transmissions nor the Mechanicus Noosphere, and I doubt you’ve uploaded it to the  _ Blade of Abraxas _ ’ cogitator network.’ _

_ The scribe’s face went bright red, and she wondered if Ladon could detect colour in the darkness. _

_ ‘I would be happy to recompile your research into a more acceptable manner,’ Ladon continued. ‘It will take some time, however. Especially as I am still preoccupied by the mysteries of this Doki-Doki. I found one clue in an ancient linguistics text that was used by a race of humans on Terra, prior to the Age of Strife, where the title “Doki-Doki” represents in their dialect the sound of a heart beating.’ Ladon attempted to vocalise a similar sound, which through his filters sounded like a dying bird. _

_ ‘Just read about the Avatars, Ladon!’ _

_ Ladon sighed, and read aloud in a bid for obnoxiousness. ‘“ _ Pre-Crusade Book: Avatars are beings of great power who have transcended normal limitations, managed to gain this power without gifts from any other being. Only lists Enamored One, Merchant is Waltoph, Snatched Shape”.’  _ He made to give a sarcastic gesture, but suddenly clutched the dataslate tighter and raised it closer to his face. ‘Waltoph? Enamoured One!?’ _

_ ‘I also added our new grox-wearing fellow.’ _

_ Ladon resorted to spouting ‘wait’ over and over.  _

_ ‘I’m waiting,’ the scribe said impatiently. _

_ ‘The Enamoured one is a god?  _ Waltoph _ is a  _ god _!?’ _

_ ‘God is too broad a word,’ she admitted. ‘Also why are you surprised by either of those?’ _

_ ‘Well I thought Waltoph was just a humble merchant!’ _

_ ‘No.’ _

_ ‘And the Enamoured One is an Abominable Intelligence from the future!’ _

_ ‘No!’ _

_ ‘And the Snatched Shape is… well no, he was pretty clear about being quite the eldritch being.’ _

_ ‘Yes.’ _

_ ‘And the man in the groz mask was just an adept killer.’ _

_ ‘Apparently not.’ _

_ ‘He didn’t  _ seem _ like a god.’ _

_ ‘Not “gods”, Ladon.’ _

_ ‘I mean, a psyker with a pair of force swords or a particularly zealous Death Cultist could probably murder just as many people in close quarters combat as he did.’ _

_ ‘Now you’re just being facetious.’ _

_ Ladon pulled out his interface port and connected to the dataslate. The scribe let him spend some time reading through. _

_ ‘Hey wait a minute… brown hair and green eyes… Do you think the Enamoured One is the entity named “Monika” from Doki-Doki!?’ _

_ ‘Holy shit, Ladon, I thought you were the brains in this group.’ _

_ ‘No,’ he replied sourly. ‘That would be Krowe. Or at least, that’s what he would like to think.’ _

_ ‘Who?’ _

_ ‘Krowe.’ _

_ ‘No, I got that. Who would like to think Krowe is the brains?’ _

_ ‘Krowe would!’ _

_ The scribe pursed her lips for a moment, nodding slightly. ‘Ladon, you realise that Krowe is a woman right?’ _

_ ‘A woman?’ _

_ ‘As in she has a vagina. Like me and Lark.’ _

_ Ladon handed Octavia her dataslate and turned to his desk to acquire his own. _

_ ‘What are you doing now?’ the scribe asked. _

_ ‘Updating Krowe’s medicae files.’ _

_ ‘Ladon!’ _

_ ‘Don’t worry, I can multitask. I am already uploading your notes to my own device. I can go through and recompile, annotate, fix your errors-’ _

_ ‘What errors?’ _

_ ‘-And finally, make sure it is properly shared.’ _

_ The scribe took in a deep breath and let it all out in a great noisy exhale. ‘Thank you, Ladon. And make sure the warband actually read this!’ _

_ ‘I’m certain they will read it if I post it. Between you and me, I’m pretty sure the rest of the warband just don’t respect you due to your complete lack of experience in the field and even within the offices of the Administratum.’ _

_ ‘Gee, thanks, Ladon.’ _

_ ‘Well, I would disagree. Apart from formatting issues, you’ve done comprehensive research and taken thorough notes. Have I shown you my thesis on the Cadian Pylons? We are quite alike, you and I.’ _

_ ‘For your sake,’ the scribe replied, nervously fingering the chrono in her pocket, ‘I hope not.’ _

_ Ladon chuckled at that and began to usher the scribe out of his room. ‘Not that my augmented intellect isn’t already superior to your wholly organic mindset, but I would hardly consider myself dishonoured in any way if I had even half of your brainpower, Octavia.’ _


	11. Chapter 11

#  XI.

Ladon woke to scarlet alarm runes in his vision reminding him that he’d suffered a cranial trauma. He tried to move, but found that he was bound to a chair; legs, arms, and mechadendrites all immobilised. His left hand, however, remained in a sorry state. The ring finger was missing, and the others were frozen in a claw-like posture, with a large chunk of the tendons on the back quite shredded. Ladon realised he’d have to replace it, and with that his metaphorical heart sunk somewhat. That hand had been a token of tradition, for one thing, but as another it had been perhaps the last pure bit of his body. Whatever bionic artifice he placed onto that stump would slowly be eaten away at by the micro scarabs in his phylactery, leaving living metal necrodermis in its stead. All that remained then of the human Ladon had once been would be his prodigious mind. Even that was beginning to fail in its own way, Ladon thought, as he watched the nine-fingered corpse smile at him from the corner of the prison cell.

The door suddenly hissed open, and a pair of Stormtroopers marched in to take flanking positions at the portal. The nine-fingered corpse laughed at the pomposity of their stances, but Ladon was more concerned with the trailing figure who entered afterwards. He was dressed in a simple white robe, buttoned up from mid-calf level to the high collar that obscured his lower face as he gazed down at Ladon. Within his well-groomed head he had eyes like dark spots gleaming behind a pair of spectacles, that looked at Ladon with equal parts bemusement and some form of pity.

‘Already awake?’ he asked in a voice dripping with arrogance.

Ladon struggled against his bonds. The man responded by punching him with a fist sheathed in power armour. The scarlet warnings screamed louder.

‘I was looking forward to torturing someone like you. Selfish, cold-hearted bastard machines. Ah, but you’re lucky your red-headed friend already confessed, and now I don’t have any more time for you. Any last words?’

‘I’m an Inquisitor, damn you!’ Ladon yelled.

The man punched Ladon in the head again, sending most of his vision into the red. ‘Enough of this nonsense, then. Nyhilandrath, see that the other prisoners are dealt with after you clean up here.’

‘Sure thing, Kit,’ answered an approaching figure that Ladon dazedly recognised as an Eldar clad in yellow form-fitting armour.

The so-called Kit stepped back and drew a weapon from his hip. Ladon tried to flinch as he raised the bolt pistol, but his crippled body was unresponsive. He registered for a split second the shell as it pierced his cranial armour before the high explosive within detonated and-


	12. Chapter 12

#  XII.

Ladon woke to scarlet alarm runes in his vision reminding him that he’d suffered a cranial trauma. Reflexively, he tried to move, but found that he was bound to a chair; legs, arms, and mechadendrites all immobilised. His left hand, however, remained in a sorry state, but he hadn’t time to dwell on that. Ladon’s vision passed the mocking visage of the nine-fingered corpse when the door suddenly hissed open, and a pair of Stormtroopers marched in to take flanking positions at the portal. The nine-fingered corpse laughed at the pomposity of their stances, but Ladon was more concerned with the trailing figure who entered afterwards. He was dressed in a simple white robe, buttoned up from mid-calf level to the high collar that obscured his lower face as he gazed down at Ladon. Within his well-groomed head he had eyes like dark spots gleaming behind a pair of spectacles, that looked at Ladon with cold bemusement. 

‘Already awake?’ he asked in a voice dripping with arrogance.

Ladon struggled in his bonds. The man responded by punching him with a fist sheathed in power armour. The scarlet warnings screamed yet louder.

‘I was looking forward to torturing someone like you. Selfish, cold-hearted bastard machines. Ah, but you’re lucky your red-headed friend already confessed, and now I don’t have any more time for you. Any last words?’

‘I want answers, Kit,’ Ladon demanded.

Kit paused and furrowed his brow. ‘Who told you my name?’

The approaching Eldar sneered. ‘Could’ve been anyone. You mon’keigh are always slipping your tongues.’

Kit swore in High Gothic and stamped his foot against the grating. ‘What a waste of time! Damn it, why should  _ we _ have to clean up Inquisitor Tamburlaine’s mess?!’

Kit stepped back and drew a weapon from his hip. Ladon again moved reflexively as he raised the bolt pistol, but was still bound. He registered for a split second the shell as it pierced his cranial armour before the high explosive within detonated and-


	13. Chapter 13

#  XIII.

Ladon woke to scarlet alarm runes in his vision reminding him that he’d suffered a cranial trauma. Reflexively, he tried to move, but found that he was bound to a chair; legs, arms, and mechadendrites all immobilised. His left hand, however, remained in a sorry state, but he hadn’t time to dwell on that. Ladon’s vision passed the mocking visage of the nine-fingered corpse when the door suddenly hissed open, and a pair of Stormtroopers marched in to take flanking positions at the portal. The nine-fingered corpse laughed at the pomposity of their stances, but Ladon was more concerned with the robed figure named Kit who had trailed in after them. He approached and looked at Ladon with cold bemusement. 

‘Already awake?’ he asked in a voice dripping with arrogance.

Ladon cocked his head questioningly. The man responded by punching him with a fist sheathed in power armour. The scarlet warnings again screamed louder.

‘I was looking forward to torturing someone like you. Selfish, cold-hearted bastard machines. Ah, but you’re lucky your red-headed friend already confessed, and now I don’t have any more time for you. Any last words?’

‘Not happy with Inquisitor Tamburlaine, are you, Kit?’ Ladon replied.

Kit took a sharp intake of air, pausing for a moment, before he threw back his head and laughed. ‘You sneaky bastard! You’re not  _ looking  _ for the Necros anomalies, you  _ are _ one!’ He stalked over to the corner of the room, right towards the nine-fingered corpse, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. The corpse leered at Kit for a moment, and then returned its infernal attention to Ladon at the same time Kit did.

‘How many times have I killed you?’ he asked, patting his bolt pistol. ‘It doesn’t matter. In that case, tell me how you learnt this power.’

‘I’m haunted,’ Ladon said, locking eyes with the corpse. 

Kit rolled his eyes. ‘Good for you. Nyhilandrath, you’re on cleaning duty.’

‘Heh,’ the Eldar replied, drawing and examining his power sword.

Kit stepped back and drew a weapon from his hip. Ladon stared defiantly into the barrel of the bolt pistol. He registered for a split second the shell as it pierced his cranial armour before the high explosive within detonated and-


	14. Chapter 14

#  XIV.

Ladon woke again to scarlet alarm runes in his vision reminding him that he’d suffered a cranial trauma. He hadn’t time to dwell on that. Ladon’s vision passed the mocking visage of the nine-fingered corpse when the door suddenly hissed open, and a pair of Stormtroopers marched in to take flanking positions at the portal. The nine-fingered corpse laughed at the pomposity of their stances. Ladon simply waited for Kit to approach him and fix that cold stare once more. 

‘Already awake?’ he asked in a voice dripping with arrogance.

‘I’m not here for anomalies, I already am one. Ordo Necros sucks, Kit.’

Kit fell silent, then backed up and drew a bolt pistol. The Eldar cursed in his native tongue.

‘Tamburlaine won’t get away with this,’ Ladon continued. ‘If Syra confessed anything, it was only to buy time. I’d bet whatever deck you’ve got her holed up in is nothing more than a gallery of blood and dismembered limbs. You come in here taunting a man bound to a chair, but you are, yourself, a dead man.’

‘What the hell…’ Kit growled, stepping closer to Ladon and holding the gun to his head.

‘Whatever plans you have for Thrones won’t keep you safe.’

‘He’s just trying to get under your skin,’ Nyhilandrath pointed out.

Kit swore and fired his bolt pistol into the cell’s ceiling.

Ladon let out a brief laugh. ‘I’m completely immobilised and you are still panicking.’

Kit swore again and again, firing his pistol twice more into the ceiling and then suddenly turning the weapon on one of the Stormtroopers at the door, who became a sudden bloody mess.

‘I am an Interrogator of the Emperor’s Inquisition, damn it! You should be sweating oil at that, you tin can freak!’

‘Calm down!’ the Eldar hissed.

Kit glanced at the remaining Scion, who was quaking in his boots, before he started to walk away. ‘I’m not in the mood to clean up the messes of madmen. You handle this one, Nyhilandrath.’

The Eldar chuckled, drawing his sword. He activated the crackling power field and stepped towards Ladon. 

‘Watch this, mon’keigh,’ he told the Scion. He dashed forward with the inhuman liquid grace native to his species, and made an overhead swing at Ladon. The Tech-priest leaned the chair backwards and spread his legs and let the sword shear through the seat of his chair and the binds on his legs. He scrambled backwards as he hit the floor, then sprung to his feet. The Eldar swung again, only for Ladon to spin to the side and swing the chair’s backrest, still tied to his arms, into the Eldar. Nyhilandrath collapsed as the chair shattered, while Ladon flexed his mechadendrites free and made a break for the hot-shot lasgun kindly donated by the ex-Scion.

The other Scion panic-fired at Ladon, but his weapon barely scratched the living metal of Ladon’s augmented body. Ladon dropped him with a clumsy semi automatic burst, clutching his new weapon in a one-handed grip. 

‘Heh, good. Now we can have some fun,’ the Eldar sneered.

Suddenly, Nyhilandrath was behind Ladon, swinging for him again. Ladon slashed one of his mechadendrites across the Eldar’s face, causing him to close his eyes just before the sword hit home. Ladon barely avoided the blind attack before firing at him. The ruby bolts went wide as the recoil jerked his arm around, but the Eldar’s reflexes sent him skittering backwards regardless.

‘ _ Ceiba-ny-shak _ !’

Ladon fired again as the Eldar charged, this time catching a glancing blow against his shoulder. The lithe, yet flimsy, xenos found himself spun around by the impact, at which point the 2 metre tall monster of metal tackled him to the ground. The Eldar thrust his sword through Ladon’s ribcage, eliciting scarlet damage runes in Ladon’s vision once more, but Ladon merely curled his mechanical fingers around his opponent’s neck. A mechadendrite darted from over Ladon’s shoulder to pierce the Eldar’s forehead in a spray of gore.

‘I usually only offer free lobotomies to friends,’ Ladon said as he stood and slung his lasgun over his shoulder, then slowly removed the power sword from the mess of ribcage, synthmuscle, and sundered armour plating. He gave a few test swings, being previously more used to the weight of a two-handed axe in the brief time he had got Zayn to spar with him, but decided this would be enough to dispatch whatever guards stood between him and his companions.

+++

Interrogator Kit Johannes had arrived at the bridge in time to see a lance battery light up a portion of Hive Zinliv’s surface.

‘Who gave the orders to fire that!?’ he screeched.

‘That was me, Interrogator,’ a deep voice said from behind him. Inquisitor Johannes jumped and spun to face the Space Marine that had been lurking in the shadows, a Blood Angel clad head to toe in suitably crimson armour.

Johannes balled his hands into fists. ‘Inquisitor Altmann, we had captured the targets. I thought Exterminatus was only going to happen if we’d failed.’

‘This Hive is filled with xenos, and we do not have the resources to waste on a protracted war. The Dark Eldar are hit and run experts. Even with the other members of the Ordo arriving soon, we would not have the resources - and that means munitions, manpower  _ and _ time - to properly thwart their conspiracy. We didn't come here to do so, anyway.’

‘Well, I suppose the faithful who still dwell in the Hive would be thankful for even this, the smallest of the Emperor’s mercies in exchange for the destruction of the hated xenos.’

Altmann crossed his massive arms, mimicking the shape of the golden Aquila on his armoured chest. ‘Are you done spouting?’

Johannes halted himself, and glared up towards his superior.

Altmann continued, ‘I presume you have only returned to the bridge because the prisoners have been dealt with? Did you learn anything of value?’

‘The Death Cultist who called herself Shroud: we could find no records of her. But she admitted to being versed in that… strange religion of your peers.’

Altmann leaned his head forward. ‘She had learnt of the Sword Logic?’

‘Yeah, she said something like that. She also said the Tech-priest we were initially after only roped her in when he found out she knew about it.’

‘Did you keep this prisoner alive?’

‘No, I ordered my men to execute her.’

Altmann’s fist was around Johannes’ neck in an instant, lifting him so that his eyes were level with the Space Marine’s, yet leaving his feet dangling three quarters a metre off the ground.

‘You fool. I did not promote you to your lofty rank based on your piety to the chattel that serve the Emperor, nor on your habit of making decisions without consulting me. One versed in the Sword Logic is too dangerous a foe to be haphazardly executed!’

Johannes tried to choke out an apology, but Altmann tossed him across the bridge. He hit the ground hard and let out a vitriolic curse as he tried to stand once more.

Altmann stalked forwards, his armoured boots booming against the deckplate, perhaps about to once more squeeze the life from Johannes. He came to a sudden stop when his ears were assailed by the noise of emergency sirens, flashing red from a nearby console.

‘Inquisitor! Alarms have been set off on Detention Level 6-B!’ the console’s operator announced. Almost before he’d finished the sentence, a spray of brains and fragments of bone from a bolt round detonation coated his station.

‘I’ll handle this myself,’ Altmann said flatly, holstering his pistol before marching from the bridge to leave Johannes with only his incensed sense of failure.

+++

Ladon had once fled the Stormtrooper forces of Inquisitor Daniel Trejo, and had in fact collected his trusty set of carapace armour from one of their corpses. As it was, that suit currently hung as tattered shreds of armaplas and ceramite plating attached to a failing mesh layer from all the ordeals he had faced today. He’d once prided himself on fulfilling daily repairs and cleansing rituals for it, but presently could offer only a desperate prayer to hope it would not fall apart completely from a lucky shot. His ballistic mechadendrite was meanwhile being repaired by his utility mechadendrite, which occupied its additional use as an improvised knife. Besides the optical model, these were his only functioning limb prosthetics, and Ladon was not entirely sure how far he could get with only a power sword and a lasgun he could hardly fire properly. He also had no idea where the enemy had taken his confiscated boltguns and heavy stubber ammunition, but more pertinently he had no idea where his fellow companions were. The other cells on this level stretched on for several hundred metres, only to open into another identical hallway. 

As another door hissed open, a pair of seemingly panicked Stormtroopers skidded to a half and stared at him.

‘I heard there was a plasma leak on this level,’ Ladon tried, slowly moving the Eldar sword out of sight. The Stormtroopers raised their guns, so he lowered his shoulder and charged, bowling one over outright and knocking the other’s gun towards the ceiling, where the las-bolts scattered wildly. Ladon turned and slashed, sending the power sword through the Stormtrooper’s armour like a Catachan cutting through vines, with even more horrific results to the meat inside. He screamed, while his partner tried to claw his way up Ladon’s legs. Ladon kicked at him and then slashed the sword down with all the grace of a lumberjack. The blade got stuck halfway through the collarbone, and Ladon had to use his foot to drive the corpse off, before crouching to search the bodies.

‘Why do none of you have pistols?’ he lamented aloud. Subsequently, he found a pair each of frag and krak grenades, congratulating himself on an actual piece of luck today. He moved forward once more, this time remembering to activate his auspex before passing the door at the end of this cell block. 

All clear. He passed the portal and looked down the hallway, noticing that this one had a four-way intersection halfway up its length. He left his vision partially in the auspex mode, looking for bright pings within the grainy green filter he watched the ship’s interior through. He connected his other eye to his optical mechadendrite’s thermal feed, looking for any sign of an occupied cell. This ship was more broad in scale than any he had ever laid eyes upon, let alone served in, which only made the empty cell after empty cell all the more eerie. As he reached the intersection, he at last received a ping. A faint, person-sized blob of heat, with another more intense signature nearer by, albeit much smaller. Surprisingly, there were no guards. Ladon moved closer and found that the door had been hastily shut with the console simply shot out instead of having the lock mechanism activated.

‘Hello?’ he called through the slab of steel. No response. He paused the repair of his ballistic appendage in order to send his combi-tool towards the smoking, blackened console. Yes, lasgun damage. Something had happened recently here. In fact, now that he was closer he noticed that the room seemed to have several additional patches of much weaker heat sources that didn’t match the ambience. He let his combi-tool spark together stray wires in an ad hoc repair scheme whilst he chanted a low prayer, before the door at last opened. His olfactory implants instantly detected the coppery smell of blood. He leaned the optical mechadendrite around the doorframe first, before stepping into view and entering.

Syra was knelt in the middle of the room, leaning over the corpse of a Stormtrooper. Four of five more lay scattered around the room; Ladon was unsure of the exact number due to their rather dismembered state.

‘Syra?’ he asked.

The girl looked up at him with dull eyes and a blood-soaked smile. Her bodysuit and the flesh beneath it was torn to shreds by lasgun fire and combat knives, and in places Ladon could see layers of subdermal armour that had been fully exposed.

‘Are you capable of movement?’ he asked her again. She nodded and stood carefully, wincing in pain as she did. She absently wiped blood from her lips, and then spat out a copious amount of the liquid.

‘You may have internal injuries,’ Ladon said, as if her external injuries were any less of a threat, ‘I currently lack the equipment to treat you.’

‘Fine,’ she replied, holding back a tremor in her voice. ‘Not my blood.’

Ladon didn’t comment on that. ‘Where are the others?’

‘Don’t know. Came for me first. What I told, sent them to you. Sorry.’

‘I handled it,’ Ladon lied.

‘I think I knew you could.’

‘Your body could fail at any moment. Please conserve your energy, I need only the most basic answers to certain questions. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much pain are you in?’

‘I’m fine,’ she insisted, staggering to her feet on shaking limbs. ‘A little cold, but pain is fine.’

‘Possible shock,’ he noted after having to catch her as she stumbled. He lowered her to the ground, but something about her manner seemed less than thankful.

‘Can you access the ship’s vox... find the others?’

‘A potential solution,’ Ladon replied, not having thought of that earlier. He moved to one of the Stormtroopers and searched for his helmet.

‘Worried about me, but your hand is busted,’ Syra noted weakly.

Ladon looked over his shoulder at her with his mechadendrite. ‘Please save your strength.’

Syra looked over herself, as if noticing for the first time how her body was falling apart. ‘Had worse. But Ladon...’ her voice cracked as she coughed up blood. Ladon moved towards her but she held out her hand and retreated. Ladon sighed and moved on to his new task of interfacing with the Stormtrooper’s helmet. Within a few moments, Ladon was connected to the Vpx network these Inquisitorial henchmen used, and with that came a few clues, which he dictated for Syra’s benefit.

‘Ladon...’ she tried to tell him, but he began to rattle off regardless.

‘These soldier’s official regiment was the 11th Epsiloid Foxes, but they’ve been on “indefinite” requisition since a redacted period of the 37th Millenium. Requisition being apparently the, “Data Expunged” branch of the Inquisition. Ordo Necros for sure.’ 

‘Ladon…’ Syra tried, staring at her blood covered hands. She winced at something, and wrapped her arms around herself as if trying to restrain herself.

He hadn’t intended to pause for her to interrupt, so carried on obliviously after he had collated the new set of data. ‘Alarms have been set off on this deck… from this cell block. Yes, I must’ve run into those fleeing you. I can trace the traffic, and yes it appears reinforcements have been ordered to this cell, my previous cell, and then cell 173. Curious that we two were isolated. Hypothesis: Sword Logic? Not enough data… Regardless, I am making a note of their location within the ship’s deck plan now, as well as other points of interest. Stick close to me, and I’m sure I can preempt their patrol routes and get us out of this...’

‘Ladon…’ Syra growled once he’d finished the tirade. ‘Please listen: things will be easier if you kill me.’

Ladon swivelled his head to face her. ‘What?’

Syra stood on shaky legs once more. Her breath was fogging up around her blood soaked mouth as she let out a long, rattling sigh. ‘Hate to do it this way.’

Suddenly, she thrust several of her fingers to her mouth, hesitating just a moment for Ladon to notice the abnormal canines, as well as bits of flesh stuck between her other teeth along with… carapace armour?  _ Had she torn these men apart with her own fangs? _ he wondered, instinctively backing away from her. He recoiled as she suddenly bit down on the back of her hand with a violent snap, as if intending to cannibalise herself. Her eyes went wide with pain and she released herself, staggering backwards with a surprised look on her face. 

She laughed.

She raised her hand once more, but this time drew her bone sword in a flash of green fire. Her eyes, previously glazed over by the drain of injury, suddenly lit up with a violent spark. With a scream coming from a near-broken throat, she swung toward Ladon in a wide arc, the momentum of which had her nearly stumbling. Ladon raised his arm in defense, and the blade dug into the necrodermis. He pulled away, and Syra came after him with another overhead swing. This time he stepped to the side. The blade impacted the floor and Syra staggered to a halt briefly, before spinning towards Ladon again. Blood sprayed from her patchwork mosaic of wounds, but some hidden well of energy caused her muscles to bulge unnaturally. 

‘Syra!’ Ladon called. But her maniac grin told him that she’d somehow lost control. Of course, she was a Death Cultist, he realised. Or, as more civilised Imperial agents knew them: zealots; butchers. People like her had their temper and passion boiling just below the surface of their psyche, but could be easily released when needed. For what reason then had she focussed on the pain of her wounds to enter such a state towards an ally; did she truly believe that she would only slow Ladon down?

As he parried another arm-shaking blow with his own sword, he saw how her tortured body threatened to give out as another spray of blood came from her wounds. She wouldn’t listen,  _ couldn’t _ listen, and her body would fall apart any second now. She hadn’t been hiding the pain, it had merely been lurking and building towards this snap into frenzy. Ladon at this point, having overcome the initial shock she had inflicted, didn’t need to search for the definition of mercy.

Her next attack was again clumsy despite the power behind it, and Ladon pushed against her arm to send her tumbling to the ground, whereupon he fell onto her and sent his sword through her heart. She managed to bark a sudden laugh with her final breath, before her muscles spasmed and she went limp. Ladon sighed and shook her blood from his blade.

‘May the Emperor receive you into His merciful embrace,’ he told her spirit, bowing his head. After this solemn vigil, he bent to retrieve the Stormtrooper’s helmet and used a magnetic lock to clip it to his belt. With that now feeding him a map of the ship and enemy patrol routes, he walked from the torture cell, wondering whether something Syra had mentioned earlier on the Hive, however long ago that had been, might have meant something more than he thought. Unfortunately, he found himself quickly distracted.

An explosion against the doorframe, mere centimetres from his head, spun all three of Ladon’s ‘eyes’ towards an approaching armoured giant, shining crimson and gold even under the low lighting. Altmann fired his bolt pistol again, but this time Ladon had already ducked inside the cell once more. The Blood Angel approached with stomping footsteps, while Ladon pressed himself against the wall with his sword at the ready. He had his optical mechadendrite positioned inconspicuously outside in order to spy on the Marine’s approach as he suddenly went silent. He must not have been part of the Stormtroopers’ battle plans, then, for there was no mention of him within the regiment. 

There was a slight metallic click which Ladon barely made out even with his enhanced hearing, but his mechadendrite panned up to show Altmann holding a grenade, which he promptly hurled around the corner into the room. Ladon leapt out as soon as the explosive had cleared the doorway. As a fireball of shrapnel annihilated the inside of the cell, Ladon was already hurtling towards the Space Marine. 

Knowing that a one on one fight with improvised or unfamiliar weapons against an Astartes would hardly earn him any steps towards completing his mission, Ladon ignored the bolt round that detonated in his chest and right shoulder, and instead skewered his Eldar power sword through Altmann’s abdomen, just below the breastplate. He forced all of his cybernetic might into the blow, shoving the Space Marine against the cell’s external wall and burying the tip of the blade within. He released the blade and ran as the Marine’s gurgling cry echoed in the distance, hoping that the time bought would be long enough to break line of sight and disappear into the prison deck corridors again. He had to find the Rogue Traders, before it was too late.

Presently, Altmann laboriously withdrew the xenos blade from himself, trusting his Larraman’s organ to heal the superficial yet painful wound. The Tech-priest had missed many of his vital organs, but had certainly bought his escape. Altmann struggled briefly, forced to watch Ladon disappear, before he snapped the xenos weapon at the hilt with his armoured fist. He cursed the Tech-priest, but moreover the foolish Inquisitor Tamburlaine who had let him run amok thus far.

+++

Ladon’s conscious mind lost track of how far he had run, but the less fallible implants of his managed to alert him when he’d nearly reached the other prison cell. HIs repair scarabs had already patched most of the bolt pistol’s damage, and though Ladon was suspicious of their increasingly speedy response time he was also thankful for it. Through the interface port, Ladon heard the Stormtrooper vox in his own ears:

‘Seventh Squad moving left, Tempestor Prime.’

‘Copy that. Third Squad, take point. Fourth Squad holding position at junction 22-HB.’

‘Solid copy.’

‘Affirmative.’

Ladon consciously checked his map this time, and noticed that he was directly in line for the patrol route of Third Squad. A courtesy search of his databanks revealed that a standard Stormtrooper squad numbered four to nine soldiers led by a Tempestor, himself under the Prime. Ladon checked the progress of his ballistic mechadenrite’s repair, and found that the power pack was still functional, but connectivity to the firing mechanism itself would need approximately 268 seconds. Meanwhile the Stormtroopers would be on him in less than 120. Unacceptable. Watching the sparks fly from the tip of the combi tool, however, gave Ladon an idea.

+++

Tempestor Gaul ordered his squad to halt via hand signal, and switched off his hot-shot laspistol’s safety.

‘You there, identify yourself!’ he called.

The Tech-priest ahead did not halt his repairs of whatever energy conduit was mounted in the bulkhead, but swivelled his head towards the squad. It screeched a series of binaric code, which caused a wince from even Gaul’s battle-hardened self.

‘In Gothic!’ he cried, at which point the distracted Tech-priest must’ve made an error in his maintenance. A massive burst of steam surged from the pipe towards Gaul’s squad. Gaul screamed as the superheated gas boiled the skin of his face, while the other soldiers instinctively shielded themselves. The sheer heat nearly cooked them even within their protective carapace suits, and one soldier was even knocked off his feet by the storm-like gust. When the ringing in their ears from the explosive act lessened to a point where they could hear Gaul’s cries and each other asking questions, the Tech-priest had vanished amidst the steam, like a red-robed ghost.

‘Should we vox this in?’ one of them asked.

‘Yeah right, and then the cogboys will blame  _ us _ for hurting their precious Machine Spirits.’

‘Buggar that. We should probably call for a medic, though. Fourth Squad had one, dinnit?’

‘Right, I’ll get on it.’

+++

Ladon hid around the corner of 22-HB as two members of Fourth Squad rushed towards their triage patient. That left the Tempestor and two more Stormtroopers. Ladon had already formulated a plan, noting how the cells were built with rather prodigious sound dampening. Not only had Syra not heard him when he’d called from outside her door, but the steam explosion had only been noticed after a vox call. Logically, a grenade explosion centered on the remaining Fourth Squad would not be picked up by Third or Seventh. The only problem would be if any survivors made an SOS on the vox, at which point Ladon, and his fellow companions, would be swarmed. Therefore, he lifted his Stormtrooper’s helmet and began to poke around its vox unit with his combi-tool. All he needed was a bit of interference. Suddenly, a piercing shriek emitted from the vox, which Ladon quickly shut out. 

He stepped out towards Fourth Squad and threw his grenade, seeing that they were currently bent over clutching their heads or trying to pull off their helms. The frag exploded directly under the feet of one of the Stormtroopers, tearing his lower body apart, while the shrapnel sliced through the forehead of the other who had pulled his helmet off. Ladon marched forward while the Tempestor Prime was struggling to his feet. He’d been saved by a refractor field, but was clearly still concussed from the blast. He tried to raise his hand and began to ask what was going on, but Ladon mercilessly shot him to death with his mechadendrite once he’d closed within range, and then switched off his makeshift signal jammer.

‘This is Third Squad! What in Holy Terra was that?’

Ladon patched himself into the network and set his implants to a monotone. ‘Fourth Squad. Interference unknown.’

‘Seventh Squad, ditto on the above.’

‘Damnit, someone needs to stop fiddling with their micro-beads!’

Ladon switched off his vox and moved to the console of Cell 173, glad to see that the Tempestor Prime had protected it from the explosion with his own body. The door slid open and Ladon walked forwards, only for a weight of wood to splinter against his head. He fell to a crouch as he cradled himself, to which Oderic shouted, ‘Sorry!’ a dozen times.

‘I appreciate the enthusiasm,’ Ladon admitted as he stood again. He looked over towards Zayn and Azrarach, who similarly held disassembled parts of the chairs they’d been tied to. ‘But there were originally five guards outside your door,’ Ladon added.

Zayn pursed his lips. ‘Could’ve taken them, I think.’

Ladon handed Azrarach the hot-shot lasgun he’d been carrying, and suggested the others get to looting outside, though he pulled Zayn aside.

‘Are you certain you are not terribly wounded?’

‘Psychic powers stopped what bleeding and toxins you hadn’t already fixed. I’m totally drained, though.’

Ladon nodded. ‘Syra was not so lucky. I had to grant her the Emperor’s Mercy due to complications from her torture.’

Zayn opened his mouth, but then bit down on whatever it was he was going to say.

‘Yes, I know it was what needed to be done,’ Ladon finished for him. 

Zayn nodded. ‘Alright, Ladon.’ As he said that, Ladon at last seemed to recall what it was Syra had told them in the Hive.

_ I’ve been studying it myself. I have already learnt to hide my death in the Ascendant Plane, and I know many other powers that others consider unnatural. _

‘I’m not terribly good with these things,’ Oderic announced, snapping Ladon back to the present. He was presently trying out the sights on his lasgun. 

‘We should try and avoid combat where we can,’ Ladon replied. ‘And we best get moving. My plan is to storm the bridge.’

‘Those are quite contradictory ideas!’ Oderic said.

‘In fact, Ladon’s plan is quite sound,’ Azrarach put in. ‘Were we to achieve a successful coup upon the bridge, where the Inquisitor who captured us likely resides, then we would be able to hold him hostage! Even the greatest leviathan would be merely adrift in the void without its head.’

‘We should move,’ Ladon reiterated. ‘There are still two full squads of Stormtroopers and a Space Marine on my tail.’

‘A Space Marine?’ Oderic gasped.

‘Yes. I believe one of the Blood Angels of Baal. He did not stop to chat.’

‘How are we going to outrun one of the Emperor’s Angels?’

‘Maybe we don’t have to…’ Zayn mused, gazing at Ladon’s earlier handiwork. 


	15. Chapter 15

#  XV.

Thrones lay awake in her new room aboard the  _ Ruber Manum Dex _ , still feeling queasy after the more than thorough investigations that Tamburlaine’s Tech-priest had performed on her body. This had only been aggravated by the recent Warp travel to Emperor-knows-where, when the touchy Gellar Field had turned the walls of her room - or perhaps it was still a prison despite the so-called ‘hospitality’ her captors offered - into wailing daemon mouths that had taunted her for hours before she’d passed out from sheer shock and exhaustion. She’d woken to normalcy and had reached out for comfort from… no one. Presently she lay curled up, shaking in cold sweat, when the door opened. 

Throne looked out to see a mirror of herself. She seemed extremely pleased. Her smile was plastered on her face as not only a broad ivory grin, but danced within the violet eyes. Eyes that Thrones had been forced to replace long ago. Thrones remained silent, entirely unsure what to say to… herself? 

‘You’re just perfect, aren’t you?’ her doppelgänger asked rhetorically. Thrones felt her heart rate rise in reaction to this apparition. The very construction of the cell seemed to stretch between them, while also narrowing inwards towards Thrones. The light above her flickered and failed, temporarily plunging her into a darkness lit only by the light of the ship’s outside corridor that lay behind the doppelgänger. They were now a silhouette with the only noticeable feature being a small red glow from the centre of her chest. As Thrones watched, the glow twisted, contracted, and then blossomed like an opening eye. 

There was something else inside that eye. It crawled out from the pupil, which resembled the umbra from a solar eclipse, until a long-limbed wraith stood at the far end of the hallway. Thrones felt her heart hammering against the inside of her ribcage; cold steel against aged bone. She didn’t even attempt to hide within the corner or draw her limbs to her chest so that she could vanish from the wraith’s baleful gaze. It crept towards her slowly, winding through the inky darkness of the hallway like a serpent until it stood over Thrones. This wraith was horrifyingly familiar. It was the shadow that often stood at the foot of her bed when she slept, keeping her frozen in its invisible paralytic grip while it just watched. Sometimes it crawled, sometimes it summoned a horde of flies, sometimes it contorted into uncanny shapes. But always, it would just look at her; just staring. These nightmares had plagued her for as long as she could remember, back when she was in Bachmeyer’s claws. 

_ Please, let me wake up, _ Thrones begged.  _ Let me at least have the pain but let me wake up please I can’t move I can’t breathe please… _

The wraith stared from above Thrones with eyes of bright white light, more like holes in the darkness than any true illumination. Thrones lay frozen, staring up at the wraith, from down on her bed. And the wraith stared back, standing in the cell. Yes there it was, in the darkness. Staring at Thrones. Standing in the cell. And Thrones was down there, staring at the wraith. In the cell. At the wraith. Down from on the bed. 

Thrones never got to scream.

At last, the door hissed open, and Tamburlaine smiled widely at the fourth Ordo Necros Inquisitor as she emerged from the cell. ‘Have I pleased you, Lady Suraya?’

‘Oh my, I have always yearned for something so precious,’ replied Inquisitor Devon Suraya. ‘Yes, Tamburlaine, this is the one. At last we can rid ourselves of these beastly idiocies.’

While Suraya waltzed past, clearly excited by the fruitions of the age-old plans of her kin, Tamburlaine remained beside the door. He smiled, as he always did, but in the pocket of his coat his right fist curled tighter.

‘My lord?’ Caluin asked from behind.

Tamburlaine turned to face him, noting that Suraya moved as well. ‘Yes, o Astropath mine?’

‘I’ve received word that Inquisitors Olivia and Thomys have both reached the Zinliv system…’

‘Well, Tamburlaine,’ Suraya chimed, ‘we should head there right away.’

Tamburlaine held his hand out to silence her, then gestured for Caluin to continue. Caluin noticed the pause and took a deep, rattling breath through his bionic lungs. ‘It seems, my lord, that Inquisitor Altmann has been eliminated. The  _ Parthenope  _ is currently in the hands of… that Tech-priest, Ladon.’

Suraya expressed her utter shock and dismay, while Tamburlaine’s smile became genuine once more as he leaned down to Caluin. ‘Prepare us for Warp departure, post-haste.’

+++

Inquisitor Altmann reached cell 173 and scanned a pair of Stormtroopers from the 11th’s Fourth Squad. 

‘Where is your commander?’ he asked them while they scrambled to salute.

‘I believe he was headed towards Third Squad,’ Azrarach said from behind the mouthpiece of a carapace helmet. ‘They had encountered a Tech-priest matching description headed for starboard, though they had taken casualties.’

‘I have encountered them already. Your commander was not among them.’

‘Our vox has been having issues, so I haven’t had contact for a while,’ Zayn interrupted.

Behind his own helmet, Altmann screwed his mouth into a scowl. Blithering ants, these mortals were. ‘What is the status of the prisoners?’ he tried, pointing with his chainsword at the cell door.

‘They are still in there, my lord.’

Altmann swept his gaze towards the door, and Azrarach caught sight of his helmet’s lenses glowing crimson. Silently, Altmann headed for the door console, sheathing his weapons to access the controls.

‘Be careful sir, they might try something…’ Azrarach gave as a feeble attempt to stop Altmann’s prying. The Space Marine audibly sneered at the idea.

The door slid open. When Oderic charged out, Altmann stretched his hands out to lock against his, forcing them into a standing wrestling match, which the superhuman Astartes was easily starting to win. Zayn and Azrarach opened fire at Altmann’s back. The hail of automatic hot-shot las-bolts were strong enough to bore through the Astartes power armour, especially at this close range, but beneath the ceramite plates was a monster not meant to be slowed, let alone harmed, by mortal instruments. In fact, as if to prove this point, Altmann lifted Oderic into the air and spun him into the disguised Rogue Traders behind him. They went down like bowling pins and began to scramble free from each other’s armoured masses. Altmann ignored them and drew his bolt pistol to aim inside the cell at Ladon. 

Ladon squeezed the trigger on his lasgun, but Altmann turned side on to reduce his silhouette. The las-bolts went wide, whereas Altmann’s shells landed in Ladon’s chest three times, detonating sequentially. Ladon was thrown backwards by the impact and landed against the wall. Would these damage alarms ever stop blaring? He rolled aside as Altmann fired again, and then saw a small object flying over Altmann. Ladon covered his head as the grenade exploded. When he looked up, he saw that Altmann was still standing, but was presently disposing of his helmet. It bore a piece of shrapnel in its top like a horn, and half of it was caved in. Beneath that, however, the bald face of Altmann was merely bleeding from a minor scrape atop his scalp. His eyes glowed an unnatural red in the darkness of the cell as he glared at Ladon for a brief moment, before he turned to face the Rogue Traders.

‘Run!’ Ladon called. Perhaps they did, because Altmann turned back to Ladon instead and leveled his pistol with Ladon’s head.

‘What happened to the Death Cultist?’

Ladon shakily began to stand. ‘She was killed.’

‘By who?’

‘I granted her the Emperor’s Mercy,’ he replied, uncertainly. 

Altmann growled, and the crimson glow in his eyes burned brighter. Ladon found himself confused by this;  _ Why did it matter? _

‘Is it true that she followed the Sword-Logic?’

_ So did that mean… _ ‘Yes,’ Ladon replied levely.

Altmann’s eyes dimmed as he regarded that. ‘And you?’

Voices swam through Ladon’s mind, dredging up the lores he had lost under the unceasing insanities he had a penchant for collecting… 

Octavia:  _ Avatars are beings of great power who have transcended normal limitations, managed to gain this power without gifts from any other being. _

Virgil:  _ True strength comes from the act and the change it brings. If you truly believe something, then why is it not so? _

Syra:  _ If one proves they are sharp enough to survive, their blade can affect causality itself.  _

Tamburlaine:  _ We are all racing towards an abyss. Let your sins, guilt, and doubt, collapse into that darkness. _

And then he heard a new voice - somehow familiar - whisper in his ear, ‘There is a sword for you. It is shaped like [Adaptability].’

Altmann recoiled from the flash of green flame that curled around Ladon’s hand and formed a bone blade. While Ladon too stared at it in brief fascination, Altmann fired. 

_ No, _ thought Ladon, and swept his sword to deflect the shell. It exploded against the cell wall instead, while Ladon pushed himself to his feet. 

Altmann moved backwards, clutching his wound from earlier. The glow in his eyes seemed to vanish, and the walls of the cell shimmered like a desert mirage. Only then did Ladon notice the spell his world had been frozen by, as from outside Oderic cried his name. 

‘Open fire!’ Ladon replied. Altmann snapped back to the present and turned sideways, prepared to fend off both parties. His bolt pistol barked as he squeezed the trigger, but did nothing to dissuade the incoming las-bolts. They slammed into his massive pauldron and the rest of his armoured form, leaving deep scores and blackened marks amidst the crimson paint. He turned back to Ladon when his magazine came up dry, but could only watch in disbelief as Ladon’s new sword bisected his chainsword, and then bit upwards through his underarm. Sparks and blood flew as Ladon severed ceramite and flesh alike, and the entire arm flew across the cell and clanked off the wall. Altmann dropped his pistol to cling to his wound, dodging sideways to break line of sight from outside as he backed into the cell’s corner. 

Ladon steadied himself. While no master duellist, he’d taken advantage of the element of surprise. That, and the inherent power he had taken from Syra. Yes, by killing her he had proven that he was stronger than her. Him, a novice in terms of the matters of the Ascendant Realm, had executed someone who had studied the art of strength, in one form or another, since early childhood. Therefore, he knew he was stronger. Why then should he not comprehend the secrets of the Sword Logic? No reason. Paracausality, he decided, was indeed quite a trip. He beheld Altmann with a new set of eyes, not necessarily borne in his body, and decided that Altmann understood what had happened as well. 

The Space Marine’s form was a puppet. Perhaps once Brother Altmann Schönbein really had been raised on Baal by his Primarch’s geneseed. But now, some malevolent thing resided behind that snarling visage. Something that indeed bore those baleful crimson eyes. 

‘What are you, really?’ Ladon asked.

Altmann was still panting, but managed to right himself. He took a step forward, looking towards the door frame, and then lifted his one arm at Ladon. A wave of green energy bowled him over when Altmann clenched his fist, and as Ladon tried to right himself he saw Altmann sprint for the door, which now bore a shimmering grey portal to the Ascendant Realm. Ladon stood up, squeezed the grip of his blade tighter, and strode after the monster.

Through the portal, Ladon found himself in what he would describe as a derelict, ruined vessel. The muted light of the Ascendant Plane shone upon scattered corridors open to the starry void, revealing Altmann’s vessel to be drifting towards a pale sun through the debris of an asteroid field. He stepped gingerly, wary that these hallways must be suspended only by Altmann’s will, and of course the monster must’ve known that Ladon would follow into his realm. His Throne World, where he was complete master, yet also the most vulnerable. If Altmann died in here, he would not be able to hide it from Ladon like Syra had from him today, and like she had from Kantor before. Mentally, he kicked himself for forgetting such a claim. Physically, he began to make his way to what he suspected would be Altmann’s throne itself, the bridge of the ship. 

Almost as soon as he began to wonder where Altmann himself was, his voice came booming out as an all-encompassing echo. Although a mockery of the Space Marine remained as some level of the creature’s voice, the ruling tone was entirely different, like an aquatic creature choking on its own arrogant song. 

‘This is not my failing, but Tamburlaine’s,’ Altmann explained. ‘Not my strength that failed, but Tamburlaine’s deceit and trickery that placed me in a blind spot. But now I know, and I am prepared to end you. You are still a pup, even if you have learnt from Syra’s strength. Still only human.’

Ladon replied, ‘And then what are you? C’tan? Avatar? Taken?’

The sound that came back to Ladon’s ears merely held the intent of a laugh. In truth, it sounded like a dying star.

‘I am none of those, and more. Gods feed on men, and I feed on Gods. How then could an ape like you stand up to me?’

‘God is too broad a word,’ Ladon muttered to himself. 

The burst of noise that was laughter surrounded Ladon once more, then fell silent. Ladon steeled both his mind and his grip on his sword and began to follow the twisting, floating halls that led unceasingly upwards to the throne of the Thing that called itself Altmann.

Ladon presently found himself moving across a large disk of strange bluish-white metal fused to the top of an inverted mountain, positioned approximately where the bridge of an Imperial vessel might otherwise be. Around him swirled a vortex of dark wind, almost completely surrounding the throne room were it not for the squall’s explicit pause directly behind the throne itself, behind which sat the pale sun which Ladon understood to be Altmann’s hidden death itself. Upon this throne, itself like a slab of oil-dark obsidian, sat the Blood Angel puppet of some greater being. A being that Ladon would soon have to prove himself stronger than. This was the way of all things in the universe. 

Ladon stepped boldly forward even as Altmann spoke, this time his voice more clearly originating from the direction of the throne, ‘How bold and how foolish you are, mortal. Hardly learned of the final shape, and yet you come charging to face certain death. Have you carved out your own Throne World yet? Of course not. Yet you stroll towards mine, aeons older than any soil your feet have stood on. I don’t think you understand that, do you?’

Ladon might’ve made a mocking reply, perhaps insulted the monster’s need to bandy words with him at all if he was so powerful. But in this realm, Ladon remembered that words themselves were sharp swords. If Altmann believed that Ladon was mortal and unknowledgeable, then in his realm that would become a truth. Unless Ladon could prove him wrong, thus throwing them from a truth to a hypothesis, and that territory was Ladon’s own realm of dominance.

The power armour shifted, and Ladon prepared himself for an incoming attack. He discovered instead that the armour was merely a hollow shell, as it tumbled soundlessly to the floor. Those crimson eyes hovered still, silently mocking Ladon as a shadow rose from the throne and took up a sword of identical nature to what Ladon and Syra’s had been, though much larger as it grew to match the titanic proportions of its wielder. Ladon pinned the shadow to be roughly the size of a Land Raider if it was tilted to stand upright.

‘I am Enshaadr, the Formless Writhe. Though my brother has fooled me, you are still an insect.’

Ladon did not reply. He decided he did not need to, and so it was.

Enshaadr screeched with raw elemental fury and leaped towards Ladon, slamming his blade into the floor, which Ladon narrowly avoided, with enough force to send shards of metal flying through the air. Several shards struck Ladon, tearing through his robes and burying themselves in his necrodermis form. He flinched, which might have saved him from Enshaadr’s follow up attack. The blade swung with its tip scraping across the arena’s surface, throwing up a cloud of sparks, which ignited into green flames. Ladon backed away from the wall this formed. He expected Enshaadr to leap forwards through the flames, and took up a defensive stance.

The strike came first, knocking Ladon backwards even as he held his sword flat against the incoming edge, but Ladon could not detect any sign of Enshaadr himself.  _ Formless _ , he recalled. He was suddenly struck from behind and lifted upwards. He crashed into the floor again several metres away, wondering if any other colour besides his warning runes existed. But he’d fallen further before. No, this would not harm him. He leapt up easily, wondering now how he could find Enshaadr. The strikes came without form, supposedly. An example of paracausality: an effect without a cause. Illogical. The cause was Enshaadr; the effect only  _ appeared _ without a cause. Hypothesis: Some part of Enshaadr must still be targetable. Ladon recalled the crimson eyes, and turned back to the Throne. Non apparent, but they had to still be there.

Ladon lowered his head and sprinted for the throne. The realm grew darker briefly, juxtaposed immediately by a burst of flames that surrounded Ladon in a neat circle. Now, his foe could strike from any direction, but Ladon would not let him. In fact, he hadn’t slowed his momentum at all as he passed through the flames. They licked at the hem of his robe and threatened to crawl up his limbs, but as they pumped forward the flames lost purchase. Then, as expected, the desperate strike came from in front as an attempt to prevent Ladon from reaching the throne. Enshaadr’s shadow materialised before the Tech-priest, swinging wildly at him. Ladon parried the first two blows and stepped around the third, and then swung at the leg. It passed through the shadow without harm, but prompted it to retreat. It stood safeguarding the throne and raised its fist, before plunging it into the floor. More flames flew towards Ladon like a pair of serpents. Ladon made a calculated gamble, and moved to intercept one of the trails. While the second crashed into him, lighting half of himself on fire, he absorbed the other serpent with his sword. So armed, he flicked the blade towards the shadow. The eldritch light of the flames leapt off the tip of his blade and tore through its torso. Ladon, still partially alight, surged forward while the shadow seemed to recoil and reached the throne. 

The crimson eyes opened.

‘You will not be crowned here in  _ my _ throne!’ Enshaadr howled. Crimson ribbons of energy screamed out from the singularities of light and bound Ladon’s limbs. They squeezed, until Ladon lost the grip on his sword, which sputtered out like an extinguished lantern. Only then did they begin to coil upwards towards Ladon’s chest and head. Ladon struggled, but could not move. Indeed, the more he struggled, the more he doubted his ability to break free and the more the Sword Logic of this realm fed off that. Enshaadr twisted and tugged on Ladon’s form, until he appeared upside down, level with the crimson eyes. Ladon wished he had access to at least one of his weapons, something to at least cause a distraction so he could attempt to get his sword back. Even his mechadendrites had been ensnared. All there was was the heavy stubber, but that had no ammunition. Or did it?

A torrent of silvery-green bolts of lightning poured from the weapon mounted in Ladon’s gut cavity, tearing through the space around Enshaadr’s eyes and drilling craters into the throne behind them. It was enough of a distraction for Ladon, even over the tumultuous screams of the creature that shook him to his bones, to free his bionic arm and summon once again his sword called [Adaptability]. He lunged forward, but came up short. He looked back at his other hand; crippled and bound. Ladon could only afford strength at a time like this. He swung the blade over his chest, severing his only organic limb once and for all. He began to fall forwards, his entire upper body free from Enshaadr’s grasp. The energy ribbons at his feet tried to tug him away even as the shadow all around him moved in to smother him, but Ladon carried the last of his momentum through to toss his sword. He was subsumed into a starless void just as it left his hand.

The sword spun through the space between the two warriors, landing directly between each of Enshaadr’s eyes to be held lengthwise with its tip embedded in the glass throne. Ladon fell to the floor as the shadow released him. He watched and listened while Enshaadr began to emit a long, deep croak that set the entire realm shaking. Cracks spread out from the back of the throne, and as they grew, so too did a set of spidery black chasms on the pale sun behind him. Ladon half turned and shielded his eyes as it reached breaking point and subsequently detonated. Torrential winds of light and screams rushed towards Ladon, carrying with them a pair of crimson streaks, before disappearing into some abyss beyond. Ladon fought with all his remaining strength to remain upright and not be swept away by the vengeful energies of Enshaadr’s true death. He found himself screaming against the cacophony, drowning out all but his own sense of himself in the process, even as his voice was stolen too.

When the winds finally died down, Ladon lowered his arms, and found himself back within the mortal plane. Several dozen Stormtroopers, serfs, and officers stared at him from their stations aboard the bridge of Enshaadr’s former cruiser. Ladon did not need to sweep his gaze for long to spot Interrogator Kit Johannsen. Kit was staring at the smouldering arrangement of the former Inquisitor Altmann’s armour, which lay empty upon the deck along with a curious piece of machinery. Not resembling anything remotely Imperial, it alone was harmed unlike the rest of the armour. It lay where Altmann’s helmet would’ve been, severed cleanly in half. As acrid smoke wound up from it, a pair of crimson lights flickered and then faded before the device crackled and truly died. 

Kit slowly looked up at Ladon, even as several of the Stormtroopers raised their rifles. Ladon took a quick step towards Kit and raised his arm, forming his flaming sword out of his hand, to level the tip with Kit’s chin. 

‘Look at me,’ Ladon growled. ‘Look at me: I am the Inquisitor now.’


	16. Chapter 16

#  XVI.

Some hours later, Tech-priest Ladon swept once more back to the bridge of  _ Parthenope _ . He scanned the viewport, and figured he could conceivably make out some hint of other ships amongst the void, but he turned to the newly instated First Mate.

‘How many are there?’ Ladon asked.

Azrarach said, ‘Two. One is an Ark Mechanicus by the name  _ Homeostasis _ . It hailed us via an Astropathic message, demanding to know about the situation on the Hive. I had the Interrogator talk of the planet’s cleansing but added no mention of our group. Communications ceased after that, and neither vessel has moved into true sensor range. They are both two hours away at cruising speed of 60% throttle, not counting for slingshotting around the Hive World itself. The other ship is presumably a Cruiser class, based only on a brief glance of its silhouette upon transition to realspace.’

‘No other visuals, then?’

‘As I said, only briefly when they exited the Mandeville point. They’ve maneuvered to hide behind the planet, though as far as I can tell neither have entered any kind of orbit. We’re trying to sweep around the planet’s periphery right now. We’ve also sent subluminal probes, and they should be approaching visual range in 23 minutes.’

Ladon nodded, and folded his arms. Both were mechanical now. After claiming  _ Parthenope _ as his own, his list of demands had been lengthy. Firstly, he had disarmed every bridge crew member and ordered all Stormtroopers to be confined to their barracks. Then he’d placed his companions as ranking officers, returning their wargear, and then given Azrarach orders to move the ship into a defensible position, correctly anticipating further Ordo Necros reinforcements. He’d sent Astropathic messages to the  _ Pride of Gladtonius _ asking for their presence along with whoever they could also drag along. Oderic and Zayn had both argued that now was the time to take this ship to a safe place, but Ladon had refused. Tamburlaine would be coming for them now, so this was their chance to rescue Fifty Thrones and end the menace. 

Finally, Ladon had demanded access to not only a medbay so he could at last dole out proper medical care for himself and Zayn, but also access to Altmann’s - Enshaadr’s - personal quarters and laboratory to analyse everything he’d found. After repairing his ruined hand, and seeing that Zayn was once more in near-perfect health, he’d annexed himself in the bowels of the ship with express orders only to alert him to the presence of other ships in the system.

Altmann’s quarters had been relatively spartan by Imperial standards. What few trappings it had suited a near perfect blend of a stereotypical Inquisitor's study, and the prayer chambers of a Space Marine. The most ostentatious display was a banner of the Blood Angels Company, and asides from that there was a golden Aquila fashioned as a shrine, a desk fitted with cogitator and autoquill set, and a bookshelf laden with dusty tomes on Calixis Sector lores. But Ladon had decided that it was all a facade of normalcy, due to the more vapid accounts recorded in the cogitator’s journals. Whatever the Ordo Necros really did, something Ladon still only had a faint understanding of, their cover story was just as mysterious. What Ladon managed to surmise, however, was that Altmann had indeed once been an assault marine from the Blood Angels chapter, but that man had died when the Ordo Necros absorbed him into their folds. The device that Ladon found amidst the ruins of Enshaadr’s physical body had been a type of malicious neural interface. Unfortunately, he’d properly destroyed it during his fight, and could only guess at its internal mechanisms. It had laid for hours in an increasingly dismantled state as Ladon studied and hypothesised, talking aloud to record his thoughts to his scribe-tines, when Azrarach had hailed him as to the unfolding situation on the bridge.

Presently, Ladon asked, ‘Azrarach, what do you know of Halo Devices?’

Azrarach pursed his lips. ‘Nothing, Ladon.’

‘Inquisitor?’ Kit Johannes ventured, before Ladon had a chance to gauge the pause in Azrarach’s answer. 

Ladon turned to face him.

‘I have heard of them.’ Kit continued. ‘They are well known to several branches of the Inquisition. Xenos devices from the Halo Stars, hence their name. They are thought to be unfathomably old, as they were found upon worlds whose stars had died long before the Imperium was ever founded.’

‘Their effects?’

Kit paused. ‘They take over their host, forging a bond between heretic and Xenotech.’

Ladon vocalised an affirming grunt, turning back to the viewport. He marched closer to the void-hardened glass as he spoke. ‘I believe Inquisitor Altmann fell prey to such a device. You served under a Xenos intelligence rather than the Astartes that it possessed.’

‘You offer me more mercy than I deserve, Inquisitor,’ Kit said, bowing his head. ‘I was blind to the will of the Emperor and the malevolence of His enemies.’

‘Shut up,’ Ladon said curtly, then pointed at the dark orb of Zinliv’s night side. ‘Aboard those ships are the other members of the Ordo Necros. They too are Xenos masquerading as servants of Mankind. Amongst them is Tamburlaine.’

‘Presumably,’ Azrarach interrupted. ‘We don’t know who is aboard those vessels.’

Kit raised his hand slightly. ‘The  _ Homeostasis _ is indeed an Ordo Necros ship, but it’s not Tamburlaine’s. Tamburlaine owns a Vengeance-class named  _ Ruber Manum Dex _ . That other cruiser could be  _ Between the Bars _ , who I think is Inquisitor Thomys. Inquisitor Suraya is the only one who doesn’t own a ship.’

‘Who owns the  _ Homeostasis _ ?’ Ladon asked.

‘A Tech-priest named Olivia.’

Ladon wheeled back to Kit. ‘Olivia what?’

Kit scratched his head. ‘I’d have to check up on records…’ he barked at a nearby serf to fetch a dataslate connected to the ship’s network.

‘Is it 47490-3?’ Ladon asked.

‘Maybe?’ Kit sighed, receiving his dataslate. ‘Yes, here, Olivia 47490-3. Tech-priest Dominus of Forgeworld Lucius.’

Ladon stalked towards Kit and snatched the dataslate from him. 

‘Ladon is that…’ Azrarach began.

‘My sister,’ Ladon confirmed. 

Azrarach silently bowed his head. Ladon tossed the dataslate aside. ‘I’m going to call for more reinforcements. Azrarach, if an engagement occurs, do not move in! Do what you can to evade and fall back.’

‘Understood.’

Ladon moved to leave the bridge for the spire of the Astropathic choir, when he noticed the viewport flash in an otherworldly purple.

‘Ladon?’ Azrarach called. ‘Warp translation 24 Void Units off our stern. It looks the size of a Grand Cruiser.’

‘Vengeance class?’ Kit asked.

‘Maybe.’

Ladon paused, one foot already out the door. ‘Azrarach, call the crews to their battle stations. The  _ Pride _ might not be here for hours, so you’ll be flying 3 on 1.’

‘I suppose I’ll have to give a little show of effort then, eh?’ Azrarach responded happily.

‘Send Oderic and Zayn to the briefing room, tell them I’ll be there shortly.’

‘Right away,’ Kit answered, before corralling his crew members to their appropriate stations. Azrarach calmly brought up an array of hololithic control panels as he settled into a command chair. Ladon left the bridge as alarms cried out. His glistening new bionic arm was stained red under the glow of the battle status lights that bathed the ship’s corridors.

_ Parthenope _ ’s Astropath, a skeletal man named Geryon wrapped in green robes, clutched his staff as he stood. ‘Back already, Inquisitor?’

‘I have more messages. Has the  _ Pride of Gladtonius _ made any further reply?’

‘I only know that they are presently unreachable, as to be expected for a vessel currently in the Warp. Our Navigator told me that Warp Routes to this system are highly favourable. Although they might be a week in transit, they will arrive, relative to us, very shortly.’

‘I would like you to make a call to the Astropath aboard the  _ Nervosa Rex _ .’

Geryon’s brow furrowed over his empty eye sockets. ‘Yes, I believe I have found them. What would you like me to say?’

‘Tell Magos Romana that Olivia has been possessed by a Halo Device, and I need Romana and her sisters to come to this system.’

Geryon nodded and walked to his divining table. Ladon followed by a few steps and hovered, waiting for him as he slipped into a trance. After some time, disproportionately long for such a simple sentence, Geryon raised his head and beckoned Ladon closer. ‘Fetch me parchment and charcoal.’

Ladon did just that as he approached a nearby shelf. When he came back to Geryon’s side, the Astropath had already slipped into trance again, with his hand held out over the table. Ladon laid the parchment beneath, while sliding the charcoal pen into Geryon’s bony, wrinkled fingers. Ladon watched in mild fascination as the Astropath began to record whatever reply was coming back from Romana’s astropath. The first scratchings were illegible, until he made it around the circuit and began the message again. Ladon’s augmented vision could only just keep up as he caught only flashes of the lettering between the feverish movements of Geryon’s wrist and hand.

_ Careful how you want to fight, Tech-priest. KUL87 is still aboard. _

Geryon started screaming, but remained locked in place as his trance writing continued, now only copying the words  _ KUL87 _ over and over until it ran off the paper and onto the desk. Ladon pedaled backwards, looking hopelessly for some kind of guidance. The screaming continued, as the flesh around Geryon’s agape mouth began to bubble and boil, peeling backwards to reveal his teeth and gums. The teeth started to grow by pushing through flesh in a none too delicate fashion. After agonising seconds, during which Ladon found himself rooted helplessly to the spot, the teeth met in the middle of Geryon’s maw. The screaming stopped. Geryon turned his head slowly to share this new demented smile at Ladon. Blood dripped from his gums, nose, ears, and empty eye sockets. 

‘Tech-priest,’ said Tamburlaine’s voice. ‘We will not abandon the dream. No one can catch us. No one can stop us now.’

Geryon’s head exploded in a flash of purple light that might’ve burned itself onto an organic set of eyes. As it was, Ladon’s built-in photo visors protected him from such, but he was left reeling anyway as psychic overflow crashed unbidden through his mind. When his bionic eyes reset themselves, Ladon found himself in a room covered in gore. He turned swiftly to make his way to the briefing room.

+++

Caluin snapped back to reality. His breathing rattled heavily through his tubing, but steadied shortly. He was aware of Tamburlaine’s close presence. ‘My lord?’

‘The message was sent, o Astropath mine.’

‘And what good does that do?’ Suraya asked. She stood by the observation deck’s window with her arms folded around herself as she stared out towards the  _ Parthenope _ . ‘He killed Enshaadr. His own Throne World must be massive now! If we destroy his vessel, we have no idea when or where he will turn up again. Olivia was right to question your efficacy.’

Tamburlaine only replied with a questioning noise. Suraya turned to face a mocking smile. ‘Tamburlaine, the Tech-priest is going to kill us! You’ve cornered him like a rat and given him only one option: to come aboard and kill us. We could’ve been perfect; we could’ve awoken! Right on the precipice, and you rouse a sleeping bear. Why did you not kill him when you acquired Subject 87?’

‘Enshaadr needed to be dealt with,’ Tamburlaine said at length.

‘Traitor!’

‘Enshaadr was too weak. He would not have survived our trial, and this would’ve spelt disaster for us as well. That Tech-priest? He is well ripened fodder now, a perfect kindling for us. Fuel for our grand fire.’

Suraya frowned, but backed away from Tamburlaine. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘His Sword Logic will pierce the veil for us, and we will bridge through with our Taken halves. Did you not see how this would happen? Did you think merely Taking KUL87 would be enough?’

‘I… apologise,’ Suraya said. ‘But why did you not tell me?’

Tamburlaine stood straighter and turned slightly away from Suraya. ‘Dear sister, your eyes were simply yet to open.’ Suraya frowned and bowed her head. Tamburlaine nodded and continued. ‘They’ll be coming for us. Olivia and Thomys should use their teleportariums to join us. Caluin, please send them my instructions.’

‘Of course, my lord.’ He bowed and walked off.

Tamburlaine waited until Caluin had vanished behind a closed door before he turned to Suraya. ‘I suggest you spend some time in your Throne World. I think you need rest before our ritual. My Custodians are erstwhile preparing the replicae.’

‘Brother, what of Enshaadr’s replicae?’

‘LOK19 has been terminated.’

Suraya seemed hesitant. ‘Are you sure what you’re doing is right?’

‘We have grown blind, bound in flesh like this. Only I was wise and resourceful enough to trust the Warp to guide us, while you and the others languished. I am… disappointed.’ With that, he turned on his heel and went to chase some eldritch errand deep within the bowels of his ship. Suraya frowned, letting the weight of his words roll around inside her ears, before she stepped backwards into a roiling cloud of green flame, and vanished.

+++

Ladon entered the briefing chamber to the sight of Oderic and Zayn across the table, recoiling from him.

‘What on Terra happened?’ Zayn asked.

‘What?’ Ladon asked. He looked over himself and realised he was covered in bone and brains from Geryon. ‘Oh yes. First point of business, Tamburlaine is here. He intercepted a psychic communication and killed our Astropath. I tried to call for reinforcement from the Adeptus Mechanicus, but I don’t know if it got through.’

‘So the sirens mean Azrarach’s about to fly us into overwhelming odds?’

‘We’re boarding the  _ Ruber Manum Dex _ . Tamburlaine knows we’re coming, but we also cannot risk killing Thrones while she is still a prisoner.’

‘If it came down to it,’ Zayn said, leaning forward over the table, ‘would you terminate Thrones if she was about to do what Tamburlaine wanted from her?’

‘Yes,’ said Ladon without hesitation. ‘Such an outcome would only occur if we had otherwise failed, in which case I am obliged to protect this Imperium.’

‘What are they, Tamburlaine and the Ordo Necros?’ Oderic asked. ‘You said you hunted him in the Ascendant Plane, but they’re not daemons?’

‘He didn’t have any alarms in his psychic aura,’ Zayn agreed. ‘I can smell a daemon, even if they try to hide it. He just seemed like an ordinary Astartes.’

‘I believe they are ancient Xenos intelligences, ones who have otherwise transcended physical restraints, who are using Halo Devices to possess mortal bodies,’ Ladon answered. ‘Everything Syra said is correct. The Sword Logic is a path tread by many, not all of which are benevolent.’

‘Ladon,’ Oderic said softly. ‘Do you believe what you’re using is benevolent?’

‘There are no whispers. No deals or riddles. It is simply an understanding of how power works. I don’t think it is inherently evil or good. It can only be used.’

‘It’s the only thing that can kill those… things,’ Zayn told Oderic.

‘Do we know that for sure? We have only fought a former Angel so far, and-’

‘Ladon had to chase him into a freaking shadow realm!’

‘Enough!’ Ladon called. ‘Oderic, do you not understand that one of the most potent weapons the Imperium has against the Warp are Psykers themselves?’

‘But this isn’t…’

Zayn cleared his throat. Oderic frowned at him, but turned back to Ladon as he began speaking again.

‘It is the same principle. I do not embrace some greater power or evil influence, but I have learnt to use this same resource to fight those that do.’

‘If you are one hundred percent sure, my friend,’ Oderic said solemnly, fixing Ladon with a gloomy stare from across the table.

Ladon nodded, ignoring the true odds he had calculated. Now was not a time for mere data. ‘I would have your judgement on something else, Oderic.’

‘Yes?’

‘The Stormtroopers aboard this ship, do you think they would fight for our cause now that I have revealed the monster posing as their previous commander?’

Oderic scratched his beard. ‘The Interrogator has fallen in with us, and they would likely follow him. If nothing else, they would at least give us some leeway to operate aboard Tamburlaine’s ship if they kept his own retinue busy.’

‘Fodder’s a good enough job for them anyway,’ Zayn added. ‘Stormtroopers are bred to follow orders and die for them.’

‘They did not treat us particularly kindly in the cells, if you’re expecting empathy or morals to get in our way,’ Oderic agreed, perhaps a bit dejected by the sourness of both sides of the ordeal.

Ladon nodded, and pressed the button on his vox. ‘Interrogator, I presume we have Shark Assault Boats in the hangars? Excellent, please mobilise for us a boarding party made of the 11th Epsiloid Foxes.’ He paused, fixing his eyes with Oderic’s once more as he waited for the reply. ‘Two hours, understood. Have Azrarach engage  _ Ruber Manum Dex _ , with all weapons fire aimed only to disable. Deploy any fighters we have.’ He lowered his hand and leaned forward onto the table. ‘We’ll head down to the hangar, unless there are any preparations you’d like to make?’

‘No, Ladon. We’re ready,’ Oderic said, standing from the table and adjusting his sword belt.

+++

Like leeches, the  _ Parthenope’s _ Assault Boats crossed the silent void between vessels, prepared to chew through the bulkheads that separated them from the  _ Ruber Manum Dex _ . Once again, Ladon and his two trusted companions found themselves bathed in scarlet emergency lighting, alongside a complement of forty Stormtroopers. As thrusters burned at irregular intervals to maintain trajectory, they shared no words while the ceramite hull shook. Moments burned through into a dozen minutes when point-defence turrets began to open fire on the flock of boarding craft. Muffled shrapnel impacts played their own havoc with the stability of the vessel, before a mechanical whirring announced the deployment of a servitor-slaved autocannon that began to intercept incoming missiles. 

Ladon paid only half a mind to the runes in his vision, blinking out one by one as the lead Assault Boats began to suffer casualties. The Stormtrooper within, if they hadn’t already been vaporised by a detonating plasma drive, would maybe last a few minutes in vacuum thanks to their armour’s inbuilt life support. They would likely pray for the alternative.

The harsh vox-filtered voice of the pilot servitor announced that there were now 30 kilometers between Ladon’s vessel and  _ Ruber Manum Dex _ . Ladon was the first to break the silence as he deployed a censer of sacred unguents and began to pray to the Omnissiah, blessing the wargear of himself and his allies.

‘We give thanks to the spirits of our power packs…’

A resonating shudder; a near impact. The vessel banked hard and the acceleration pulled violently on its occupants. Ladon activated magnetic locks on his boots even as Oderic’s heavy armoured form leant against him, desperately clutching the ceiling handgrip.

‘We give thanks to each Mars-machined bolt…’

The vessel’s movements did not wane. The acceleration ramped up as the roll was joined by an off-center lateral movement as the rear of the ship began to yaw forwards.

‘We give thanks to the keenness of our blades…’

‘15 KILOMETERS TO TARGET.’

The runes representing Ladon’s flock were less than half now. The display of his own transport notified him that they were off-target by three degrees, but were trying to correct. The new projected breach sight was somewhere above the Enginarium decks at the rear of  _ Ruber Manum Dex _ .

‘We give thanks to the Emperor’s protection manifest in our armour…’

Zayn nervously caressed the pommel of one of his blades, casting a sideways glance at Ladon, who from his point of view, was standing on an angle, still parallel with the floor of the vessel while Zayn was partially propped against the wall.

‘5 KILOMETERS TO TARGET.’

The projected landing sight was surrounded by point-defence turrets. A resonating  _ clunk _ sounded from the frame of the ship. A new rune told Ladon that the autocannon had jammed.

‘Engage the rites of war, Omnissiah. Link our weapons with our enemy’s deaths.’ Ladon finished.

The vessel’s lateral acceleration finally began to normalise, and Zayn and Oderic found themselves lowered to the floor once more. Oderic looked paler than usual.

‘Boarding approach is going to be loud,’ Ladon said, eliciting further colour drained from the knight. 

Zayn asked, ‘How loud?’ Ladon said nothing, so Zayn asked again, ‘How loud, Ladon!?’

‘Our point-defence is inoperational, and there are two warheads locked onto us.’

‘Oh. So, the usual.’

‘I’m afraid so.’

Klaxons blared through the interior of the ship, reminding the occupants that they flew within a giant ceramite coffin about to be opened to the void should the impossibly thin skin of the Assault Boat be breached.

‘The Emperor protects,’ Ladon heard a nearby Stormtrooper mutter. 

‘IMPACT IMMINENT.’

Something struck the spine of the Assault Boat about midway. vox-filtered screams joined in a cacophonous chorus with the alarms as several men’s grips were mercilessly undone by the pull of the void, and plucked through fire and tortured steel into nothingness, and a certain doom. The Assault Boat pitched upwards along this axis, directing the mag-clamps and lascutters away from the hull of  _ Ruber Manum Dex  _ even as its initial velocity hurried the vessel on a relentless crash course. The pilot servitor’s cranium suddenly popped as its cogitators overloaded to calculate a new angle of attack. 

Ladon gripped Oderic and Zayn’s shoulders nearest him, while his mechadendrites reached around to secure the other side of them. ‘Brace yourselves,’ he said needlessly while the Shark smashed against the blackened hull of Tamburlaine’s void-worthy cathedral lair.

+++

It took Ladon a moment to realise that the alarms blaring were not completely inside his own head.  _ Ruber Manum Dex _ had entered its own combat state, with alarms blaring through the vox and flashing lights competing with flickering flames as they wrestled for control of the shadows under great gothic arches and half-ruined bulkheads. He stood, slowly, and reached out absently for support. His hand brushed over Zayn, who was bent over trying to catch his breath.

‘The Emperor protects,’ Oderic said, battered and with half his armour plates torn off.

Zayn voiced his agreement and dusted himself off, while Ladon stepped out past the twisted hull of the Shark to the tunnel of shattered bulkheads behind it. Whatever section of the ship they were set to impact had already been blasted away by one of  _ Parthenope _ ’s fighter escorts. What their vessel had then burrowed through had been crosshatched spaced armour and a few inner corridor bulkheads.

Ladon grabbed a nearby Stormtrooper who was likewise staggering out of the wreck. ‘Where exactly in the ship have we landed?’ he demanded.

‘Sir! We’re trying to ascertain that ASAP! We’re trying to raise vox links with the other boarding parties, but so far we’ve had little luck. Something appears to be jamming us.’

Ladon released him with a mutter and stalked forward, weapons drawn, as his augur array scanned the smoke-filled corridor. ‘I need to find a cogitator and access schematics of the ship.’

The Stormtrooper called out to six of his companions and had them move forward to secure a perimeter. The other half of this corridor was blocked off by the wreckage they’d brought. 

‘We need to start heading down to the Underdecks,’ Oderic said as he and Zayn moved to stand beside Ladon. ‘That’s where the holding cells will be.’

Ladon tested the vox, and found that the Stormtrooper’s earlier comment had been correct. The only thing he was receiving was a weak static hum. 

‘Guys,’ Zayn warned. ‘The Taken are here. I’m getting the same psychic feedback as there was at Bachmeyer’s facility.’

Ladon nodded as he walked forward. His head and optical mechadendrite swept in overlapping arcs as they searched for the required cogitator. Before long, the creaking bulkheads, blaring alarms, and dull thumps of hull impacts became normal; this was no one’s first time upon an Imperial vessel at war. But with this normalisation came a threatening lack of  _ other _ sound. A silence that Ladon knew was insufferably loud in Zayn’s head. It was several minutes before one of the vanguard came running back to alert Ladon as to the location of a cogitator. The Rogue Trader trio picked up their pace to reach it, standing built into a wall between two passages of a four way intersection.

‘Form a perimeter and cover me,’ Ladon ordered, moving to the cogitator. He ran his hand over the screen, as if testing it, before plugging his datalink in while his combi-tool ran over the operating keys. The servitor brain behind the glass awoke to his prodding, and droned over the schematics of the ship. They were still at the rear of the ship, rather high in fact and not far from both the Enginarium and Navigator spire. Two targets of high value that would cripple  _ Ruber Manum Dex  _ if successfully sabotaged. If he split his current retinue it was certainly doable. He copied the necessary routes to such, and also found the holding cells. He was hoping for a manifest, but had to spend considerable time deciphering the cryptographic runes that locked such knowledge away. His implant-augmented mind was forced into multiple pathways of such code-breaking even as multiple appendages tapped away at the keyboard. At long last, Ladon was dismayed to find that Thrones was no longer listed amongst the prisoners, but there was another name of note; Anek Krowe. Ladon felt a sudden pang of familiarity and made note that Krowe would be a valuable asset, if rescuing her was not for purely sentimental value. But where was Thrones…? Here, buried away was a reference to a medical transfer to a certain medbay halfway along the ship. With this data stowed away, Ladon at last detached from the cogitator.

He looked around in confusion. The intersection was lined with dead figures in carapace armour, while only a fraction of his Stormtroopers remained standing. Panicked, Ladon searched for his two companions. They stood nearby. Las burns scored their armour, and both were breathing hard, but they were alive.

‘Good of you to join us,’ Zayn panted.

‘How long was I out?’ Ladon asked. But even as Zayn answered he knew it didn’t matter beyond ‘a long time’. The cogitator had been more trouble than he’d anticipated, and he hadn’t even noticed. He dug through his robe for a datapad, and called everyone over to share out his maps. 

‘Ladon?’ Zayn interrupted. ‘Did you hear me?’

Ladon paused while a Stormtrooper Tempestor copied the schematics onto his wrist-mounted Slate Monitron. Zayn sighed.

‘It was the Taken. Shades of old Stormtroopers; probably ours, maybe Tamburlaine’s own retinue. They appeared out of nowhere.’

‘I understand,’ Ladon said. ‘But this was to be expected.’

‘I’m making sure you’re not still up in your noosphere,’ Zayn said with concern.

‘Of course. But I’ve found what we need. We’ll need to split up. How many of you are there?’ Ladon directed his last question to the Stormtroopers, but had already counted them before their Tempestor could answer. ‘Eight go up to the Navigator’s spire. Ten to the Enginarium. You other five are with Zayn and Oderic to the brig to rescue Krowe.’

‘Krowe? That old Commissar who we used to work with?’ Oderic asked.

‘The same.’

‘Sir, where are you heading?’ the Tempestor asked.

‘I’m going to see if I can follow a trail from the medbay and find Thrones.’

Oderic gripped Ladon’s arm even as the Tech-priest started to move off. ‘With no vox? Ladon, don’t you think it would be better to come with us first and then work forwards?’

‘It would be at least 43% less efficient to maintain that kind of pathfinding…’

‘We’re not here to make sure a Titan production line works smoothly. We’re here to fight and win, Ladon.’

Something about the softness in Oderic’s tone made Ladon bend more so than he would’ve to a solid ribbing. 

‘Very well. Yes. Tempestor, your men are with us.’

‘Affirmative, sir.’

+++

Azrarach gave a calm order to burn thrusters to starboard as an incoming barrage from  _ Ruber Manum Dex _ moved in from the edge of the auspex range.  _ Homeostasis _ and its recently identified escort,  _ Between the Bars _ as Kit had suspected, had not yet moved around the Hive world. However, deep scans had detected Teleportarium signatures from both vessels, suspected to be keyed in to Tamburlaine’s ship.

‘Forward lance is 23 degrees from target,’ announced the Gun Captain.

‘Very good!’ Azrarach replied, eyeing a copy of the Gun Captain’s display on his own dataslate. ‘Once rotation is complete, we should close in by another two VUs.’

‘Captain!’ an officer yelled. ‘More Warp-exit signatures, planar west of the Hive, between us and the other ships.’

‘How many?’ Azrarach asked, swiping across to another window on his dataslate.

‘Two. They’re hailing us. Lunar-class and Conquest-class.’

‘Open channels.’

A hololithic screen opened, displaying three grainy images. One was a masked Tech-priest, while the other was a scruffy man in a bowler hat.

‘This is Magos Romana 47490-1 of the  _ Nervosa Rex _ !’

‘‘Tis uh, Highlander Chey of the  _ Proide of Gladtonius _ .’

Azrarach smiled, and nodded a greeting. ‘This is Azrarach Aezememnon Aazamindius of the commandeered  _ Parthenope _ . Thank you for your reply to our call of help!’ Azrarach paused to talk to a nearby crewman, ‘Bosun, please update our allies as to our battle plans.’ 

The Bosun nodded and began transferring data over the vox link with the two newcomers. Azrarach turned back to the hololith and smiled.

‘I suppose I’d best try and let your brother know you’re here,’ he said directly to Romana.

‘Yes! He does still owe me, after all! Perhaps this will remind him!’

‘One moment please,’ Azrarach leaned over a console and lifted a vox mouthpiece. ‘Hello, Ladon? Your reinforcements have arrived.’ He paused, letting an uncharacteristic frown slowly cross his features. ‘Well that’s a problem.’

‘Wha’s goin’ on?’ the Highlander asked, starting as if he hadn’t been paying attention earlier.

‘We’ve lost vox contact with everyone on board the  _ Ruber Manum Dex _ .’

‘Query: Is that Olivia’s ship?’ Romana asked, her mask filling more of her hololith image as she leaned forward.

‘Negative, my dear. That would be the Ark Mechanicus across from the planet.’ Even as he said it, Azrarach saw on the auspex that both Ordo Necros vessels were beginning to emerge from their shelter, no doubt to engage with the reinforcements.

Romana appeared to consider this as well. ‘I will prepare Skitarii boarding parties and then maneuver to cover your flank!’

‘Aye, Oi’ll troi and get sometin’ similar to send over to the uh, other one,’ agreed the Highlander.

‘Very good! This battle shall soon turn shortly.’ Before he could cut the link, Azrarach was knocked almost off his feet as the ship rocked suddenly. Alarms blared louder, and someone announced that Void Shields were down.

‘Well then,’ Azrarach said as he steadied himself against his console, his knuckles glowing white. ‘I suppose we’ll have to start getting tricky.’


	17. Chapter 17

#  XVII.

‘That was the Navigator’s spire. They’re dead,’ Tamburlaine smiled, lowering his hand from the vox bead in his ear. 

‘Then we’re officially dead in the water,’ Olivia growled. ‘Are you sure we aren’t the ones walking into our own trap?’

The four members of the Ordo Necros were gathered in Tamburlaine’s personal chambers, a space that resembled more a library or antique store than any living quarter. Marble statues of no anthropomorphic subject acted as end caps to towering bookshelves, which carried not only old tomes but many strange silver objects that resembled mechanical versions of kitchen devices that might be found on a Feudal-world. Thomys and Olivia had abandoned their own vessels via Teleportarium to meet here, though they were evidently growing impatient. Olivia agitatedly flicked her mechadendrites like an angry feline’s tails as she stood gazing out of a panoramic viewport, through which she could just barely make out the occasional flash of munitions lighting up the silhouettes of the void battle.

Tamburlaine turned to her. ‘You’re not scared are you, sister?’

‘We’re being strangled.’

‘My dear sister, we have outlived stars as we waited for our moment. This hardship will not affect us.’

‘For once, I agree with Tamburlaine,’ agreed hawk-nosed Thomys. ‘Your sudden fear is most familiarly… human.’

Olivia’s mechadendrites bristled in response. ‘Do you suspect Altmann felt fear when that infernal Tech-priest severed him?’

‘No,’ Thomys answered.

Olivia’s brow furrowed into a more severe ‘V’ shape as she began to answer, but Tamburlaine waved her complaint away before it could leave her. 

‘You never had faith in me, o sister mine.’

‘How dare you speak that hex,’ she hissed, swiftly gliding forward to glare up at his forehead.

‘That was out of line,’ Suraya said.

‘Perhaps,’ Thomys began, ‘but I believe Tamburlaine is correct. Although some of his… indulgences are questionable, he has not failed in his objective.’ 

Tamburlaine’s default smile said it all. Olivia backed away from him and turned back to the viewport.

‘Will your Astropath be finished before the Tech-priest finds us?’ she asked.

‘Your brother?’ Tamburlaine teased.

Olivia laughed. Through her Mechanicus implants, it sounded like a blender trying to hack up a furball. ‘Oh yes, I nearly forgot.’

+++

‘I’m out,’ Ladon announced as the Taken form of an Ork Nob, of all things, charged down the prison towards them. Zayn cursed as he swung around Ladon’s form and ran to meet the xenos. His blades bit through the star-shadow body and blew it apart into the all-too familiar death vortex.

‘Of everything?’ Zayn asked over the din of ever more Taken warping around them.

Ladon sent his hands and several mechadendrites through his robes. ‘Nothing for my bolter, and my stubber’s backpack needs a few minutes.’

‘What about your las thingy?’

‘It’s certainly trying!’ Ladon replied. The diminutive ballistic mechadendrite was occupied trying to thin the fodder of Taken Stormtroopers that Oderic was knee-deep in.

‘It’s a shame these monsters have their weapons vanish with them!’ Oderic called back. 

Ladon grunted in reply as he used his mechadendrites to clumsily fence with a newly arrived Taken Tech-priest, who was utilising much the same combat style. Zayn sighed as he had to step in and save him again.

‘Thank you,’ Ladon said.

One of the three remaining loyal Stormtroopers hurled a frag grenade into a pile of the enemy shades. With a dissatisfying crack, several of them were wiped from existence.

‘We’re not far now,’ Ladon announced, taking the time to split his attention to a virtual readout of the ship schematics. ‘Yes, yes. Keep pushing  _ that _ way,’ he pointed with one of his arms. He withdrew it quickly as a stream of ruby projectiles came thundering towards him from a nearby doorway.

‘On our six!’ a Stormtrooper called.

‘Hold fire! Friendly, friendly!’ someone else replied. There were a dozen or so troopers in the livery of the 11th Ellipsoid Foxes, another stranded boarding party, who swivelled their fire to join Ladon’s squad. Ladon waded through the gunline to reach their Tempestor.

‘Status?’

‘14th Squad, sir. Every other party’s still lost. We haven’t heard from anyone else. The Taken have been relentless.’

Ladon nodded, he hadn’t expected much else. ‘I sent squads to the Enginarium and-’ The ship shook violently, sending Ladon stumbling against the wall. The 14th Squad Tempestor swore as he steadied himself, then fired his bolt pistol at a Taken who had appeared behind them. 

‘Lookout, sir!’ he shouted, as he leapt to stand between Ladon and whatever else was behind him. Ladon wheeled in time to see the Tempestor’s helm caved in by a massive chain. The chain grew taut for a moment and then whipped the Tempestor through the air. Ladon traced the chain as it retracted across the prison hall. He found it wielded in the fist of one of Tamburlaine’s Custodes guard. It swung the chain above his head and threw it towards Ladon once more. Ladon ducked and threw himself to the side. His bulky frame hit the floor and he rolled over as the chain hammered the floor, denting the metal plate. Ladon reached out towards where the Tempestor had landed, and triggered his ferric-lure implants. By now, several of the Stormtroopers had noticed the new threat, and Ladon joined his fire with theirs once the Tempestor’s bolt pistol had sprung into his hand. 

The Custodes seemed to ignore the incoming fire, which hardly scorched either his robe or flesh. Even the bolt pistol was barely scoring any real damage. It wound the chain back and swung it across the corridor. The first three Stormtroopers were bisected messily, and another half dozen were thrown like ragdolls to crumple against the opposite wall. Zayn’s charge was stalled as he suddenly found the floor slick with blood. The Custodes noticed him and made an overhead attack. Zayn forced himself aside, praying his footing would not fail. He narrowly avoided it, resulting in an explosion of blood thrown up from the floor. He slipped as the floor plate buckled beside him, made worse when the chain flicked up and wrapped around his ankle. Zayn went flying towards the ceiling, tilting his body to absorb the impact with the armour on his shoulder. His momentum reversed and he fell to the floor again. He spluttered as blood filled his mouth, staining his hair and garb, while the Custodes reeled him in. 

Oderic sprang to action, landing astride the metallic serpent that lurked in the blood. He raised his warblade above him and swung it down with its motors roaring. Serrated teeth and power field severed the chain with a mighty crash and shower of sparks. The now free end of the chain recoiled towards the Custodes, while Zayn hurriedly untangled his ankle and clambered to his feet. He nodded to Oderic, and they charged to flank either side.

The bewildered Custodes plucked up his sundered weapon and prepared to receive his opponents. He whipped at Zayn, who caught the chain with one of his swords. Zayn stood for a moment, as if to contest the Custodes’ strength. A vain effort, as it turned out. The superhuman warrior, concocted from the most ancient alchemies found on Terra itself, merely flicked his wrist to send Zayn’s sword skittering across the space between them. By the time the sword landed at the Custodes feet, Oderic was at his other flank to deliver a singular strike. The Zaythan warblade sunk into the foe’s shoulder, tearing flesh and spilling blood. It did not go much further. Something steel hard trapped it against the Custodes’ bone, and the motors stalled. The Custodes grabbed Oderic’s head and began to squeeze even as Oderic kicked at him. 

As Zayn ran forward, he had to leap as Oderic was flung towards him. The Custodes swiped clumsily at him, but Zayn was exceptionally nimble. Only half the size of the towering brute, he sounded a warcry as his blade stuck into the monster’s stomach and then ignited. As the beast staggered, Zayn flicked himself upwards and grabbed the hilt of Oderic’s blade still within the Custodes’ arm. He wrenched it free at the same time his opponent plucked the other blade from his chest. Zayn hacked the blade into the side of Custodes’ neck and then gunned the motor. Oderic lunged forward at the same time to throw the Custodes off balance with surprising strength, tipping the pair of them to the floor where Zayn levered the blade right through the neck. The head came off in a spray of gore and the Custodes spasmed, and then fell silent. 

The pair looked at each other, satisfied, and then noticed that the corridors had fallen silent, as if the fall of their cursed champion marked an undeniable loss. 

‘Sirs!’ One of the Stormtroopers yelled. ‘We’ve got vox coverage once more!’

Zayn handed Oderic his warblade back and stooped to retrieve his own swords. A shadow loomed over him and his reflexes sent him whirling in retaliation. His blade scratched across the flesh of the headless Custodes. It swung out blindly and caught Zayn with a blow that had him tumbling over the floor. The Custodes retrieved its head and held it to the neck stump before it opened its mouth to usher forth a spray of blood and an unholy scream. Oderic held up his warblade to parry an incoming blow that sent him skidding backwards. Lasgun fire opened up on the beast, which swept towards the gunline like a strange, skittering serpent. Ladon sprinted forward to counter it. He wasn’t entirely conscious of this reaction, but felt it needed to be done. His cybernetic legs propelled him within the Custodes’ reach and when the creature’s strike came, Ladon found his paracausal blade in his grip. He severed the arm with a clumsy yet momentous blow, and then stepped forward to strike downwards at the neck. 

The Custodes stepped backwards as its chest tore open and a long metallic construct burst forward to strike at Ladon’s head. Ladon moved to intercept it with a mechadendrite, halting the thing mere centimeters from impact. It resembled a cybernetic centipede, complete with red glowing eyes and steel mandibles dripping with blood and some bionic ichor. Ladon wrenched it further to him and severed its head. Crimson lightning shot from the blow back towards the centipede’s host body. The neck and chest detonated entirely, leaving a charred corpse, while Ladon held his new prize aloft: an intact Halo device. It chittered and bleeped, as if trying to defiantly snap at Ladon’s limbs.

Oderic and Zayn moved to him while the Stormtroopers fanned out to form a perimeter and ensure that the Custodes really was dead this time.

‘That’s what they are?’ Oderic asked.

‘Ancient things that live on through these parasitic Halo Devices,’ Ladon confirmed, already ushering it into a specimen jar.

‘They’re going to turn Thrones into one of them, aren’t they?’ Zayn asked.

Ladon did not answer. ‘Krowe’s cell is not far.’

+++

Anek Krowe. She had arrived in Inquisitor Kantor’s warband a few missions into the existing operations, and had been given express command almost immediately. She ran a tight ship, much to Ladon’s chagrin early on, but he eventually came to respect Krowe more as a pragmatic survivalist and less a paranoid puritan. Krowe was the warband’s mouth, eyes, ears, and puller of strings. It was no wonder she rocketed up the ranks; a Throne Agent practically off the bat, Interrogator not much later, and then she had managed to eke out the title of full Inquisitor after the warband had split from Kantor’s direct rule. While Azrarach actually spent most of Krowe’s reign in the background, Oderic and Zayn had both been under her command alongside Ladon. But all those three remembered now was that she was an ex-commissar mercenary who had helped them operate on several jobs across the Calixis Sector, and only later discovered she’d been tangentially related to Kantor. Ladon wondered how Krowe would react to their reunion. The one time Ladon had appeared before her new warband, Thrones’ warband, Krowe had not been present, though he had no doubt that her lover Lark would have passed on the news.

Then again, Krowe was no stranger to false lives.

She looked up at Ladon, blinking against the glare from the corridor lights behind his towering silhouette. 

‘Ah, something more traditional this time,’ she mused, a cold defiance flickering in her eyes. Ladon scanned her features, noting that she had received superficial wounds a few days ago, which had since been left to heal.

‘Inquisitor Krowe, it has been some time,’ he said. ‘Are you hurt?’

Krowe’s thin lips twisted into a shadow of a smile. ‘Tech-priest Ladon.’

Ladon held out a hand to help her up. She moved stiffly. 

‘They tortured you.’

‘He wanted to know about the Tyrant Star.’

‘Tamburlaine?’

She nodded.

‘What did you tell him?’

‘I thought you might have more faith in me than that.’

‘Evidently not. He has Thrones.’ 

Krowe’s look went sour. ‘Interesting. This is something to do with Kantor and Bachmeyer’s feud, isn’t it?’

‘Tangentially. All these cloning and psyker projects were being used as beta tests by Tamburlaine’s enclave. They’re possessed by Halo Devices.’

‘I am not injured, per se,’ Krowe said, preventing a silence while she mulled this over in her head. ‘Tamburlaine had some psychic means of inflicting pain.’

Ladon recalled the red right hand he’d bore against Zayn. ‘I can provide a dosage of Stimm to keep you-’

‘You know I only ever take my own brew for that sort of thing.’

Ladon tilted his chin. ‘I am not certain we can find amasec and bolter cleaning oils right now.’

‘Then I’ll carry on. You’re not here alone, are you?’

‘No. The old warband is with me.’

‘They didn’t store their memories inside a dead robot canid though, did they?’

Ladon let out a small binary bleep in surprise. ‘How did you..?’

Krowe chuckled, set her shoulders, and marched out of the cell.

‘Commissar,’ Oderic smiled, mocking a Guard salute. 

‘Ex-Commissar,’ Krowe specified. 

Zayn grinned and nodded at her. ‘Can’t boss us around now, then.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘Azrarach is piloting a commandeered ship, currently engaged with this one,’ Ladon explained. ‘We’re heading to the bridge, stopping at the primary medlab along the way.’

‘For Thrones?’

‘For Thrones,’ Ladon affirmed. He handed Krowe the bolt pistol he’d recovered. ‘The enemies are the same the Tyrant Star threw at you on Atrai and Cazador.’

Krowe frowned at that. ‘The power to Take. Tamburlaine asked me several questions on that. I could tell him nothing.’

‘It’s connected to the Tyrant Star, and things beyond. It’s…’ Ladon let his sword appear in his hand. Krowe, to her credit, did not appear startled at all.

‘Complicated,’ she finished for him.

+++

The medlab’s doors were locked. Two Stormtroopers who had been voxed in earlier stood on either side of the frame, ready to breach once the third member of their team had finished with the lascutter. As Ladon approached, a nearby Tempestor came forward to brief him.

‘There’s one lifeform inside. Tech-priest, I think. Been sending servitors at us as we came up the deck, then locked the door. Yuri, how long on that?’

‘80 seconds if it doesn’t overheat!’

The Tempestor nodded to Ladon, who waved aside the Stormtroopers at the door.

‘Sir?’ the Tempestor asked. 

‘We will handle this. Please move to reinforce the team assaulting the bridge.’

‘Understood sir.’

Oderic, Zayn and Krowe moved forward as the Tempestor ordered his men to start moving. 

Krowe said, ‘Fighting bowside is pretty heavy, but they’re making headway. Plenty more squads have started reuniting.’

‘This is good. I am glad the Omnissiah blessed our vox to be clear,’ Ladon replied.

‘30 seconds!’ the lascutter operator announced.

Ladon gestured for Oderic to come closer, and when this was obliged he billowed a cloud of incense over their weapons. ‘Your weapon’s power field is varying by an additional 14% beyond standard.’

Oderic hefted his blade in both hands and eyed its length. ‘More importantly, I think some of the teeth were damaged by the fight with the Custodes. At least these Taken do not leave gore to plug things up.’

‘10 seconds!’

‘A small blessing, but one we should count anyway,’ Ladon replied, moving to cover the doorway with his heavy stubber.

‘Breaching!’ the Stormtrooper announced, cutting through the door’s maglock and sliding it open. He was immediately cut down by a storm bolter mounted on the ceiling inside. Ladon stepped over the pile of armour scraps and meat giblets to fire upon the turret. He received glancing blows in return, but destroyed the targeting array. The weapon shut down and retracted, and then Zayn darted inside.

‘Another door,’ he announced to Ladon. ‘Locked.’

Ladon cursed, kicking over the scrapped lascutter, as he, Oderic and then Krowe marched inside. The room had once been sterile white, but marred by bullet holes surrounding the turret’s mount and a trail of blood on the floor, only barely scrubbed away. Stands of medical drips had been tossed aside, and an entire shelf housed nothing but broken glass.

‘I can try and coax the machine spirit,’ Ladon said, plugging a mechadendrite into a nearby panel. In response, a hololith of Tech-priest Vyala appeared in the centre of the room.

‘Leave now, foolss! You have, huh, no fruit to bear from thiss… endeavour.’

Oderic paced towards the hololith. ‘Where is Thrones?’ 

‘I do not recognisse thiss, hm, name.’

‘KUL87,’ Ladon growled.

‘Ah the, heh, final sspecimen? She iss long gone, hehe, and you are only wassting your, uh, time by knocking on my door.’

‘Where is she?’

‘Deep in the bowelss of, ah, the ship. In the Inquissitor’ss clutchess. You will not…’

The door beeped and opened. Vyala screamed as Ladon stepped into the darker inner lab and ran his heavy stubber’s fire across her legs. The stilt-like contraptions shattered and she collapsed. With arms and mechadendrites both she tried to haul herself up a shelf filled with heretical devices, which Ladon also opened fire on, showering the heretek with glass and foul fluids. She spluttered through her respirator and fell once again. Ladon stood over her with the barrel of his gut-mounted weapon pointed at her face.

‘Where is Tamburlaine?’

A needle mounted on a spindly mechanical arm jabbed at Ladon’s shoulder, only to bounce off the plate of his armour. Ladon seized the arm and snapped it. Vyala howled and drew her remaining limbs around her chest, cowering before the other Tech-priest.

‘Do not make me ask a third time. You have mocked me enough through the pretense of medicae you practise in here.’

‘You can do no worsse than Tamburlaine! I will not tell!’ Vyala screeched.

Ladon reached down and tugged at a power cable until it popped out of its socket with an actinic flash. One of his mechadendrites severed a bundle of tubes that began leaking emerald ichor over Vyala’s robes and the floor. She switched to binary cant to continue her curses, while Ladon continued to dismantle her precious cybernetics. Disgusted, Ladon finally kicked her in the chin.

‘I guess I shall sever your head and interface with whatever pathetic excuse you hold as a cerebral implant.’

‘No! Wait, mercy please, hm, oh comprehending one!’

Ladon waited while Vyala tried to pick herself up as best she could. Her cybernetics, which Ladon could hardly tell apart from models found amongst only the Dark Mechanicus, were in ruins. ‘They wait in the inner sanctum, here;’ she blurted off a series of coordinates. 

‘What have you done to Thrones?’ He asked.

‘Nothing! I, huh, only performed testss of her body and sspirit! Please!’

Satisfied, Ladon began to walk off.

‘Wait! I am in critical, hur, condition! Pleasse, you claim to be a chirurgeon; you cannot, ah leave me!’

‘Krowe, I don’t think we have time to add a servo skull to my collection. Please grant her the Emperor’s Mercy.’

‘No!’

Krowe silenced the twisted metal monster with a clean blow from her bolt pistol and a scowl upon her face. 

Ladon found Oderic standing beside him whilst he started cross-checking the coordinates with the schematics he held on his dataslate. ‘Tell me, knight of Avalonia, is she what you see when you look at my explorations outside Imperial dogma?’

‘No,’ Oderic answered honestly. ‘But perhaps I imagine that fate might lie down a path I fear you will one day take.’

‘I am careful to check my paths,’ Ladon said, bringing up an image of  _ Ruber Manum Dex _ ’s deck plan on a dataslate. He pointed out Tamburlaine’s sanctum to Oderic. Oderic pouted as he tried to figure out if the Tech-priest was making a joke.

Krowe’s upper lip was twisted in disdain as she and Zayn caught up. ‘This so called Inquisitor keeps despicable company.’

‘That title belongs to the puppet that the Halo Device pilots. He is no more an Inquisitor than I,’ Ladon replied.

‘I feel like you still do a better job though, Ladon,’ said Zayn. 

‘It depends who I can save.’

+++

The warband flew through the ever deeper corridors running through the belly of Tamburlaine’s vessel. They only paid passing attention to updates from the Stormtroopers about the progress being made against the inhuman bridge security.

‘We’re close,’ Ladon announced, skidding to a halt at an intersection. He paused to consult his map, and then took off again. 

‘Are the four of us going to be enough to even defeat these monsters?’ Oderic asked, his tone clipped by a comparative shortness of breath.

‘We only need to get Thrones and leave. I’ll be able to fight them long enough for you to grab her.’

Zayn snorted. ‘What odds have you calculated for that, then?’

‘Irrelevant. The Sword Logic does not rely upon statistics.’

‘More importantly, you’re still outnumbered 4 to 1 in that scenario.’

‘I have an escape plan.’

‘I see.’

They rounded another corner to find at last another living soul. He was bent, heavily augmented, and robed. He seemed to just be minding his own business as he ambled forwards along the corridor they’d just arrived at. He raised his head upon seemingly noticing them to reveal the blind face of Caluin. He immediately spun on his heel and scrambled for the door he’d just exited. He hammered at the controls even as Zayn and Oderic’s rapid footfalls hammered on the deck when they charged towards him. Caluin got the door open just as they reached him, and Zayn tackled him to the floor. Oderic scanned the room while Ladon and Krowe caught up.

There were five stasis pods within this steam-filled chamber, dimly lit through the floor grates below by some furnace-like light. One of the pods was empty, but the other four held human figures. One of them was Fifty Thrones. Oderic ran for that device but soon fell prone as something gripped his leg. A Custodes, almost identical to the one they’d fought earlier, dragged Oderic back into the shadows between two ancient stacks of machinery and held him aloft in midair.

Ladon opened fire, to no effect. Caluin lashed out with a psychic blast that knocked Zayn away. He balanced himself by reaching for a nearby pipe, but by then the Astropath was already scrambling to the Custodes’ side. 

‘Your timing is impeccable, Tech-priest,’ Tamburlaine drawled, entering from behind with his entourage of fellow Ordo Necros Inquisitors. ‘We were just about to leave.’

Ladon turned to look at him, while also examining the other Inquisitors. Suraya was disturbingly similar to Thrones, but lacking any form of human emotion. Thomys held no significance to Ladon, but he uttered a binaric curse to his sister. She responded in kind, but he noticed there was a certain crimson glow within her respiratory implants. Her very own Halo Device.

‘How long have you infected my sister?’ Ladon asked.

‘A small enough interval that I cannot count,’ Olivia admitted. ‘Perhaps no less than six solar decades?’

Ladon raised his mechadendrites, an approximation of a sneer, as Tamburlaine kept walking to stand by Caluin and the Custodes.

Tamburlaine indicated Oderic in the Custodes’ grasp, about to have his leg crushed to powder. ‘I’m impressed that you managed to kill Haut. Fomal here is mighty upset at losing his brother.’ 

‘Let him go,’ Ladon growled.

‘Ah, Tech-priest, then what? I suppose you try to grab your precious KUL87 and beat a fighting retreat?’

‘Her name is Thrones.’

Tamburlaine clicked his tongue at that and shook his head, smiling all the while. ‘KUL87 is a tool for my dear sister here.’

Ladon looked between Inquisitor Suraya and Thrones in the stasis pod. ‘Replicae… a new host? Why would Olivia have been only so recently swapped then. Would not any replicae, or any body, work?’

‘We are moving beyond these fleshy shadows, Tech-priest,’ Tamburlaine replied. 

‘It is time for us to sit once more with the celestial wombs in the darkness,’ Olivia added. ‘This body of your sister has had its clone meticulously groomed for precisely this moment. That KUL87 eluded us for so long was beginning to worry us. I’ve almost killed this stupid vessel, and then we’d have to start all over again. It has already been so long.’

Ladon looked across at the stasis pods once more. Inside he saw a duplicate yet pristine set of faces that the Inquisitors wore, like gazing into a reverse funhouse mirror. 

‘This is why you wanted the power to Take?’ Ladon asked.

‘Oh he learns well,’ Suraya cooed.

‘This Astropath of mine has been brewing a ritual to grant our people souls,’ Tamburlaine smiled. ‘In the antediluvian times of this galaxy, our people were paracausal gods, but we did not have a presence in what you call the Warp. Instead, we had nightmares wherein we were forced to hide our deaths. It was a cruel joke of immortality; forever unwhole and hidden away. So now we stand poised to Take the souls we have desired. The Gods of Chaos have grown fat as they try to lord over these realms which once were ours.’

‘Petty revenge amongst beings too aloof to care for us ants,’ Ladon remarked.

‘It is your own ignorance that dashes you upon our shores, to break over and over.’

‘All I wanted was Thrones,’ Ladon pointed at Suraya, and hid his surprise at the spontaneous appearance of his sword. ‘You can rot without a soul, for all I care.’

‘Tech-priest, do not lie to us,’ Tamburlaine replied coolly, smiling even as his fellow Inquisitors bristled at the sight of Ladon’s own paracausal weapon. ‘You have only sought answers. Answers to a question that begins and ends with one name.’

Ladon had been about to argue, but faltered to the final remark that came from between those grinning teeth. With his eyes locked on Tamburlaine, he paid little attention to the other Inquisitors walking forward to a growing Ascendant portal that Caluin was casting. Olivia ran her mechadendrites over a datapad she produced, which caused the occupied stasis pods to lurch forwards upon maglev plates. 

‘Ladon!’ Oderic yelled. ‘Forget me and stop these creatures!’

Ladon felt himself move forward without remembering initiating an attack, but the blade of his sword halted against the outstretched palm of Tamburlaine’s red right hand. He threw Ladon backwards with a slight tilt of his fingers. First the stasis pods and then the Inquisitors disappeared into the starry void, before Fomal threw Oderic to the floor and left with his masters. Caluin disappeared last, and with him the portal began to close.

Zayn ran forward before Ladon could even right himself. He took a stance similar to what Caluin had, and threw up his arms. The circumference of the portal flickered, but decidedly slowed its shrinkage.

‘Well, what are you idiots waiting for?’ Zayn yelled. Krowe helped haul the Tech-priest to his feet before the two of them surged forward. Zayn was visibly trembling, with sweat rolling off his forehead and blood trickling down his lip as they passed him. Beyond lay the Ascendant Realm, and more so perhaps it was the very Throne World of Tamburlaine. Ladon hesitated, but only for as long as it took Oderic to appear at his side and continue the charge. Ladon flushed his emotional core with binary psalms to the Omnissiah. Would such prayers matter in such an alien realm as this? It mattered not. Ladon marched forward with his sword held before him in two hands. 

By the Emperor, they would end this today.


	18. Chapter 18

# XVIII.

A new realm stretched before them; a grey void hung with the ghosts of stars long ago murdered. Ladon’s sword shed light in a dim radius around the party, who clutched their weapons and prayers in equal measure as they stared up at a great, scarlet citadel. Towering barbs of pitted bone held aloft cyclopean walls of antediluvian stone, disrupting their graceful curves with jagged eyesores that clawed at the shadows that shifted through the storm above. Its howling winds were like spectral virescent flames, trembling as they reached up to the void only to break and fall screaming again. 

Ladon marched toward a wide set of steps built not for mortal feet. Silently his companions followed, their eyes flickering to catch every will-o-wisp and shade that danced out the corner of their vision. Ladon’s own eyes scanned the trio of statues that waited atop the treacherous climb. The first was goatlike, with curved vipers crowning its head like antlers. The one beside it was grotesquely malformed. The un-light of this foul place rippling upon its chitinous stonework gave the impression that it was squirming under some foul ichor. The final piece resembled a bald-faced dragon with its neck, shoulders and chest covered in shaggy ape-like hair.

Ladon had read many forbidden tomes and prophecies, not all of them while on duty as an agent of the Inquisition, but it was the words of the _Propheticum Hereticus Tenebrae_ that his cerebral cogitators dredged up from the depths of his memorance implant. The very tome he had purged and then recovered when he’d sold his memory to escape the forbidden knowledge that Kantor’s missions had driven him to; the very knowledge that had ultimately destroyed Octavia.

Three forgotten tyrants, brought to serve a dead star.

‘Is this… where I think it is?’ Zayn whispered.

‘Not where,’ Oderic replied. ‘What.’

Ladon’s grip twitched as he tightened the grip on his sword. ‘The Tyrant Star.’

+++

 _Parthenope_ shook for the umpteenth time, no less violent than previously. Near Azrarach, a stretch of panelling exploded as some venerable system overloaded. Showered with sparks and shrapnel, Azrarach felt something red-hot slice through his brow. He bit down on the expletive and instead ordered a full readout on the ship’s current status. Blood trickled through his fingers as he clutched the wound with one hand, and swiped at hololith displays with another. 

‘Have the Enginseer Prime tend to the plasma cooling channels immediately,’ he ordered, fighting to keep his voice level.

An adjacent crewmember recoiled from his vox earpiece. Azrarach caught the tail end of binaric screeching as the crewman turned to him. ‘Uh… he says he’s working on it.’

‘Ladon would’ve had that sorted out in only a moment,’ Azrarach muttered. He reached out and lightly stroked the desk of his command station. ‘Come on darling, keep your chin up!’

By this point of the battle, _Homeostasis_ and _Between the Bars_ had split off from the orbital plane of the Zinliv system, one above and one below, to vertically flank what Azrarach had lovingly dubbed the Thrones Avenging Fleet. Olivia and the Highlander had fallen in to cover Azrarach’s ventral and dorsal flanks even as he continued to exchange broadsides with _Ruber Manum Dex_ . The Taken were already aboard _Parthenope_ thanks to their space-warping abilities, and the decks were ablaze with battle damage. Morale was falling, and Azrarach himself was on the verge of getting almost pissed. The defensive stance he’d held up until guns had started blazing was now his downfall, as he could no longer maneuver freely around Zinliv’s gravity well. Not that he was used to piloting such a massive vessel as this.

‘Oh how I miss _Mademoiselle_ ,’ Azrarach bemoaned to his pistol. Belladonna replied with a strange burring noise.

Another hit from _Ruber Manum Dex_ nearly jolted the pistol out of his hand. He clutched her jealously to his chest as the bridge slid back and forward under his feet.

‘Bosun, where are our Void Shields?’ Azrarach intoned. There was no reply, so he raised his head. The bosun lay dead, his face slashed by a broken glass screen while a bewildered serf knelt beside him, merely trying to comprehend what was happening.

Azrarach moved to his vox, simultaneously eying up a display of the active Stormtroopers. ‘How goes the capture of the enemy vessel?’

‘Sir! We’re facing heavy fire from the bridge,’ replied a high ranking Tempestor. ‘More Taken than we’ve ever seen! And they’re coming up from-’ A scream silenced him, and the vox turned to static.

Azrarach scratched his stubbly chin. This recent mission had hardly given him time to breathe, let alone shave. He mentally reprimanded himself for his uncouthness, and then turned to his battlemap.

‘What are our remaining offensive options?’

‘Sir, we’ve lost a lot of power. Our lance batteries are dead, and only port macrocannons are operational.’

‘Fall back from the _Ruber_ . We’d better serve if we coordinate our attacks with Magos Romana. We can bring down the shields of _Homeostasis_ and let her lance it.’

Ararach watched the distant stars begin to move as the ship laboriously yawed through the void before twisting to aim its portside at the Ark Mechanicus above. As the hololith readout of the battlemap flickered between refresh cycles, _Parthenope_ began to inch its way further from where Azararach presumed Ladon, Oderic and Zayn currently fought to rescue Fifty Thrones. Suddenly, the hololith died entirely as a strange light from the cathedral window viewport filled the bridge. Azrarach looked up, already frowning even as a crewman rattled off on some extreme Warp transfer signature.

A new star had materialised within the Zinliv system. A dead star, a forgotten one, and according to the refreshed battlemap it was already moving closer.

‘Do we… do we fire on that?’ someone asked.

‘Reverse thrust. Keep us away at all costs.’ Azrarach said. ‘Relay that to our allies as well.’

‘At once, sir.’

Azrarach chewed nervously on his lip as Belladonna gave another distressed buzz.

‘Shh, shh,’ he said, patting her. ‘I’m sure the others know exactly what they’re doing.’

+++

Somewhere in the Calixis sector, one Proctor Ruslov Popov began to scratch viciously at his arm.

‘Cut tha’ out, won’t ye?’ bemoaned medic Chey McClawe Myslin the Third.

The former Arbitrator apologised in a deep, heavy accent. ‘I vas itchy.’

‘Oi can bloody well figure tha’ out, ya dork,’ Chey replied. ‘But ye need ta stay still when Oi’m tryna stick tools in ya!’

Popov grumbled another apology and settled in again as Chey continued his treatment. ‘I usually only itch like that vhen there is heresy afoot.’

‘There’s always heresy afoot when ye work for Kantor,’ Chey muttered.

‘No, no, my friend. This is much vorse.’

Chey snorted, and decided to humour Popov. ‘Where on the scale of genestealer servitors to Orks with soulstones would ye score it?’

‘Vell, I vould have to say…’ Popov paused and tried to sit up to look at Chey’s scruffy visage. ‘Those are very specific examples.’

Chey gave the massive man a mere shrug.

‘It is… familiar. I don’t know, just something I have bad feeling about.’

‘Story of me loife,’ Chey scoffed. He gave a triumphant ‘Ha!’ as he withdrew a long pair of forceps from Popov’s shoulder. Clutched within their tip was a piece of shrapnel, which he lay in a tray next to several dozen other pieces, arranged in a loose pattern to resemble a hefty anti-tank rifle round. It had only just managed to get through Popov’s armour during the latest of Kantor’s assignments.

A knock sounded from the door to the medbay. Chey ignored it to start cleaning up the surgery, whereas Popov craned his neck to beam at the Tech-priest waiting for them.

‘Hello Gaius!’

‘Yes hello, Popov,’ he replied via a heavily filtered vox. ‘The Inquisitor sent me down with an urgent message. We’re to meet in the briefing chamber immediately. We’re also about to make an emergency Warp translation.’

Chey gave a long, exaggerated sigh. ‘We only jus’ got a new breather!’

‘The Inquisitor seemed rather distressed about some news he got. Brother Cordas and Artisan X13-58 are already waiting.’

Chey dropped his forceps in a tub of murky water and gave his equipment trolley a light kick to send it rolling across the medbay. While Popov swung himself off the bed and replaced his shirt, hardly slowed by his recent surgery, Chey stalked over to his workbench and fetched two items. One was a jug from which he swiftly drained a hearty amount of rich amber liquid. The other was a tremendous sniper rifle which looked like it was sized for a Dreadnought to bear, not a scrawny medic.

‘Imbibing alcohol before a briefing and emergency deployment is not advised,’ Gaius said.

‘Feck off, tincan.’

‘I remind you of your recent blackouts. This is a common side effect of foreign chemicals to the organic brain. They have a severe impact on your administrative duties and field performance.’

‘Nonsense!’ boomed Popov. ‘Is good for you: puts hair on your chest!’

Gaius made an uncertain noise in binary as Chey scratched at his exceptionally hairy chest, then led the trio out. 

+++

Virgil waited at the foot of the statues of the Forgotten Tyrant. Ladon felt undeniably that the ball of light was smirking.

‘Children and stars kiss and lose each other,’ he spoke. ‘Grasp my hand gently and guide me. The dream gods brought me into a landscape; butterflies fluttered through my soul at midnight.’

‘Such poetry,’ Krowe mused, this being her first meeting with the will-o-wisp.

‘What do you come with?’ Virgil continued.

‘With swords,’ Ladon replied.

‘To love with agony,’ Virgil replied, almost with a hint of satisfaction. He disappeared of course, as he was always wont to.

‘Charming,’ Krowe said. ‘Was that a friend or foe?’

‘Neither,’ Ladon admitted. ‘More of a-’ 

He was cut off when the walls behind the statues began to split. Ancient doors ground open to reveal the inner sanctum within the keep.

‘What does this mean?’ Zayn asked. ‘The Tyrant Star is back? And Tamburlaine is allied with it?’

‘Were it so easy,’ Ladon replied. 

He led the march forward to a realm of bare black stone. The chamber’s walls stretched out in great curves to either side of the party, and then vanished into an infinite vacuum beyond. The floor glistened as they grew closer; the disembodied light sources revealing polished, smooth and almost translucent obsidian. It was a disk, but its edge terminated only a few dozen meters from the door, nowhere near where the walls might’ve ended. At its far end was a great inverted arch, a near complete skeletal halo of silvery metal. Caluin and the Custodes stood near this, while the Ordo Necros gathered around the center of the room. Four monsters in human skins stood in a rough square, looking inwards towards their kneeling replicae. Tamburlaine had his back to the entrance, while across from him stood Suraya and before her: Fifty Thrones.

For a moment Ladon felt an unbridled rage attempt to propel him forward to attack. But as he took his first step forward, a vision befell him.

_The Man Who Speaks In Hands lay beaten, cowed before the blades of Syra Fireheart and Gaius Fulminus while Fifty Thrones watched through her rifle’s scope. This was where it should’ve ended, long ago..._

Ladon snapped back to the present. Tamburlaine had craned his head to look at him, and smiled. The Custodes, Fomal, began to lope forward, giving the Ordo Necros a wide berth, while Caluin threw up his arms. A shimmering pentagonal wall of pale green flame surrounded the fake Inquisitors even as Ladon lunged forward. He was thrown back, partially scorched by the barrier, and landed on his back. Oderic helped him to his feet while Zayn and Krowe prepared to fight Fomal.

‘The time has come for the lost to remember,’ Tamburlaine announced. ‘O Astropath mine, are you prepared?’

Zayn sprung forward as Fomal drew a great curved blade from his back and made a low, reaping sweep with it. 

‘Yes, and the circle is drawn,’ Caluin replied, sweeping his hands through the air. The arch above him suddenly lit up with silvery light.

‘Then I shall call upon the four elements; the most ancient of magic’s ancestral rites,’ Tamburlaine continued.

Krowe opened fire, aiming for Fomal’s centre mass. As the hulk stepped away from Zayn’s strike, he raised his sword with blinding speed to intercept the bolt rounds.

‘First,’ said Tamburlaine, stepping forward to the replicae of himself. Like the others, it gazed blankly at the floor before it. It resembled Tamburlaine only loosely; a bald, chisel-faced man. ‘Earth: The Vessel.’ Tamburlaine reached forward, and with his thumbnail carved a sigil into the replicae’s pale, almost grey skin. 

Fomal stepped forward and swept his arm out at Zayn, knocking him to the ground. At the same time he propelled his sword towards Krowe. She dodged, barely, as she fell into a combat roll.

Tamburlaine nodded to Olivia. Ladon had been watching, trying to seek out some sort of chink in the barrier, but noticed instead that Olivia seemed hesitant. Whatever Tamburlaine and Caluin had rehearsed, did the other Inquisitors not know about it?

Oderic was in the fray now, standing in front of Krowe to parry an overhead blow. He grunted as the effort to resist being swept aside sent tremors through his body even as sparks flew from where his blade met Fomal’s.

‘Let me show you, o sister mine,’ said Tamburlaine. ‘Fire: The Blood.’ He raked his five fingers over the scalp of Olivia’s replicae; a small implantless girl who was only of meat. Ladon watched as Olivia froze when Tamburlaine brushed past her towards Thomys.

Zayn leapt onto the Custodes’ back, barely able to wrap his arms around his meaty neck. He dug a sword through the collar, remembering where the Halo Device Ladon had destroyed in the last foe had lain. With an inhuman growl of pain, Fomal reached over and snared Zayn’s hair.

Tamburlaine stood before Thomys and waved the side of his hand over the replicae. ‘Wind:’ he said, ‘The Spirit.’ 

Thomys grabbed him by the collar of his dusty coat. ‘What are you doing, brother? Was I wrong to question Olivia’s misgivings earlier?’

Tamburlaine smiled wider and gently untangled Thomys’ grip from himself. He smiled, but said no more.

Zayn went flying, with a sword still lodged in the Custodes’ chest. Krowe, still on her back, kicked herself along the ground and fired at Fomal’s ankles. A bolt finally managed to penetrate and subsequently explode, spraying calloused fragments of skin and meat. The beast fell to his knee, plunging the tip of their sword into the floor in an effort to prop itself up.

Tamburlaine approached Suraya, and Ladon once again bristled as he watched him lay his hand on Thrones. Her vacant stare was aimed at some middle distance of the obsidian floor before her. Ladon swung his sword at one of the corners of the flame barrier, but it bounced off with no effect. He screeched a curse in binary.

Oderic stepped toward Fomal’s centre mass and swung his blade through his wrist. It struck bone as the power field cleaved the flesh apart. He pulled the blade up again and triggered the chain motor. With a roar, he pulled down and cleanly severed Fomal’s sword arm.

‘And water: The Mind,’ said Tamburlaine, running his fingertips over Thrones’ shaved head.

‘You have betrayed us,’ Suraya growled. She knocked Thrones aside as she lunged at Tamburlaine. From her chest sprouted black tendrils of ink emanating from the crimson glow of the Halo Device embedded there. But Tamburlaine merely raised his own red right hand and the tendrils froze before his palm, quivering.

Zayn was back, scratched and bruised but hardly winded. He shoved his other blade as far as he could through the back of Fomal’s head, pressing the pommel with the palm of his free hand.

‘Now, cut it out!’ he cried to Oderic.

Ladon saw now that the other members of the Ordo Necros were frozen, bound by red lines of blood-like energy. They flowed from their Halo Devices, through the back of their replicaes’ heads, and out of their eyes. Tamburlaine stood in the center of them, his hand raised as the streams danced like ribbons towards his hand.

‘Yet this,’ he cried, loud enough for everyone to hear as he stepped through the flame barrier and towards the arch at the back of the platform, ‘is not enough. A realm of souls, for the soul of a God. We need the essence of Chaos. We need...’

Krowe, Zayn and Oderic looked up from their battle to see Caluin begin to levitate, as if Tamburlaine’s hand held a telekinetic crip on him. Tamburlaine spread his fingers slowly, and Caluin’s chest began to split open. Blood sprayed from a nest of broken ribs that surrounded a mix of mechanical and flesh organs. The Astropath screamed; his vox implants echoing amidst the sound of psychic anguish. Zayn dropped to his knees to clutch his head. 

Tamburlaine smiled further, triumphantly, as the inverted archway flickered once more, and a portal of Taken energy formed within it. Ladon could sense something behind that membrane-thin wall of energy. Tamburlaine rotated his hand and beckoned forward to the thing beyond the threshold with a single phrase.

‘Malice.’

+++

Inquisitor Kantor’s ship, the _Tiberian Sun_ , materialised in the Zinliv System at a point between the Thrones Avenging Fleet and the Tyrant Star itself. How it had bypassed any form of Mandeville Point, or avoided catastrophic gravitic interference, one could only guess at. Most likely, it had something to do with the copious amount of eldritch technology bolted to its hull. It sent only a brief one-way communication to the other six ships, enforcing Kantor’s right as an Inquisitor to take command of any operations in the area. It then fell silent. Only a single Arvus Lighter slipped from one of its hangar bays, and burned towards the shadowy keep on the Tyrant Star.

Chey stood at the back of the shuttle, leaning on his sniper rifle. _What the fek am Oi doing here?_ he wondered, sweeping a narrow-eyed gaze across Kantor’s warband. _Oh yeah, ta patch these idiots up after they inevitably do someting daft._

Gaius was up front to assist the pilot servitor. The other Tech-priest, X13-58, or Prometheus as he ‘graciously’ allowed meatbags to call him, was blessing the wargear of himself and Popov. Omniel Cordas was adjusting the sights on his own sniper rifle. It was smaller than Chey’s, but still quite large. Cordas was, after all, a Scout Marine from the Raven Guard.

‘Oi, bird fella,’ Chey said, wanting to break the monotonous sound of Prometheus’ chanting. When Cordas did not raise his head, Chey whistled. He smiled when he saw the Astartes tense and slowly look at him.

‘What is it, mortal?’

‘200 gelt on me makin’ the first headshot afore ye.’

‘This is not a game. Your Inquisitor has ordered us to solve a vital threat to this Sector, and perhaps the greater Imperium of Man. Your provocations will not-’

‘Five minutes until touchdown,’ Gaius announced over the internal vox. The interruption allowed Cordas to realise the other acolytes were looking at him.

‘Affirmative, Throne Agent,’ he replied.

Chey looked across the compartment to see if anyone else was laughing, but they’d all returned to their solemn duties. _Bah_ , he thought. _At least Soira has me back._ He did a double take as he realised that yes, his old redheaded companion definitely was sitting on the previously empty bench opposite him, smirking at his joke.

‘What are ye…?’

She frowned and quickly raised her finger to her lips. She gestured upwards, and Chey sighed. _Wee bairn and her games…_ He looked left and right, amazed that no one had noticed. He held up ten fingers to her, and she nodded before she vanished in a pale light.

Later, when the rear door opened, Chey was the first with his boots on the Tyrant Star. ‘Oi ‘ave to take a leak,’ he shouted, running off to hide behind the nearest piece of towering architecture.

‘This is why I have vaste recycling in Power Armour,’ Popov said after a beat of initial confusion.

‘Agreed,’ said Prometheus, stepping out of the shuttle to let loose his servo-skull. ‘Need for external waste management reduces daily efficiency by 0.08%.’

Cordas grunted, watching the medic run off with narrowed eyes.

Presently, Chey portalled into Syra’s Throne World, glancing around. ‘Place seems a lot… cosier, Red.’

Syra blushed furiously as she regarded the small, plain stone chamber that hovered within a maelstrom of ghostlight. ‘I haven’t had a good kill in a while. Plus I only just came back from another death…’

Chey tut-tutted. ‘Beginning ta be a habit of ye.’

‘We have more important problems,’ she replied, fighting to keep back a petulant tone. ‘You remember that Tech-priest who helped you get rid of that Necron arm thing that Lark had?’

Chey pursed his lips as he thought about that. _Oh yeah, with the poirates and the navy..._ ‘Aye.’

‘He’s uncovered something. And yes, it’s the same thing Kantor’s shown up here for.’

‘The Toirant Star?’

‘Apparently so. He and Thrones found a trail and when they followed it, she got captured. Now a rogue Inquisitor is using the Sword Logic to acquire some master plan.’

‘Oi thought that ye, Thrones and Gaius already…’

‘So did I. I wasn’t expecting this. Apparently things have escalated since Ladon killed me-’

‘He wot?’

‘Oh. I was very injured, so I tried to kill him, so he would put me down.’

Chey made several agitated noises as he tried to comprehend this. ‘Why would ye… and he… but…’

‘It was the only way I could show him the Sword Logic.’

‘Tha’ crazy bastard is runnin’ round with the Taken’s bollocks!?’

Syra giggled at that analogy. ‘Not quite. But he needed it to take down what we’re dealing with.’

‘Well whadda ye want from me?’

‘We’re gonna be his desperate measure.’

+++

Azrarach considered a cease fire for all of three seconds when Kantor had arrived and beamed his Inquisitorial mandate to the fleet. But as he recalled how he’d already lost contact with the 11th Epsiloid Foxes, and that Romana had relayed her Skitarii’s reports that only Taken were aboard the enemy vessels, Azrarach realised that the enemy were not going to be sharing courtesies with him. Besides, Kantor was far beyond any weapon range of this skirmish. It wasn’t like they were going to accidentally hit him.

‘ _Homeostasis_ has her shields cycled again,’ a sensor-operated told Azrarach.

‘Captain, I need those down so I can send reinforcements to the beachhead my Skitarii hold near her main reactor!’ Romana informed him. Along with the Highlander, the three captains had moved to live open vox in order to better relay information now all ships had closed within what was known as knife-fighting distance. 

‘Highlander, switch targets to match my fire,’ Azrarach said. ‘It would be better to take out one of them completely at this point, so that we might at last have superior numbers.’

‘Aye.’

‘Romana, make sure your boarding parties are on standby.’

‘Teleportarium is fully charged!’

The Highlander made a worried groan. ‘Moi shields just fell, and they’ve got lances trained.’

Azrarach frowned. ‘Helm, move us to intercept those shots. The _Pride_ ’s cannons will be more vital than ours.’

‘Sir? Preliminaries say that we might not survive another direct hit.’

‘It’s the only shot we have. Come on, now!’

The helmsman paused, his lips slowly drawing tighter. ‘Aye, captain!’

Azararach exhaled, closing his eyes for a brief moment. Like this, he could almost hear the ship’s Machine Spirit protest as she began to slide through the void, towards the hungry finger of an incoming lance battery.

‘Oi’m locked onto the bastard,’ Highlander announced. ‘Firing!’

Azrarach watched through the viewport as the starboard side of the _Pride of Gladtonius_ lit up like a manufactorum’s furnaces as they hurled immense shells through the void. Each one carried dozens of exajoules of kinetic yield. The shields of Olivia’s Ark Mechanicus would be shattered without a doubt, and then Romana’s Skitarii would have a clear shot at detonating the reactor.

 _Parthenope_ , on the other hand, was about to receive a heavy dosage of lance fire through its midsection. For an unseasoned naval commander, moments like these were sheer terror. The knowledge that a projectile was screaming towards you, crossing dozens of kilometers even at short range, could be maddening. Azrarach’s eyes were glued to his battlemap as he watched the blip that represented a mass of particle accelerated laser energy move towards his ship. But he was far from unseasoned. 

Azrarach smiled, holding his hands behind his back, remembering an old war poem from the Koronus Crusade.

_If you’re at war, you’re either in a safe place, or you’re not. If you’re in a safe place, don’t worry._

_If you’re in the danger, you’ll either be shot at, or you won’t. If you don’t get shot at, don’t worry._

_If you do get shot at, it will either miss, or it will hit. If it misses, don’t worry._

_If it hits, you’ll either be killed, or you’ll recover. If you recover, don’t worry._

_If you are killed, then by the Emperor’s Mercy you cannot worry._

_In situations like this, a soldier can never worry._

From the viewscreen, Azrarach watched _Pride_ fire a second and then a third salvo. A series of spherical explosions detonate against the Void Shields of _Homeostasis_. As smoke and debris spread outwards from the invisible barrier, lightning began to flicker along the ship’s outline. All at once, the smoke found a way to flow towards the actual hull.

‘Shield offline,’ Highlander told Romana.

‘Affirmative! Skitarii deployed!’

‘Impact imminent!’ sensor-operator yelled. 

Meanwhile, the engine bloom on _Homeostasis_ flared, flickered, and slowly died. 

‘Polarise the viewscreen please,’ Azrarach said. A band of light began to materialise through cracks forming around the midriff of the Ark Mechanicus. Fiery puffball explosions blossomed around it, and then spread across the hull in an accelerated fashion. The glass of the viewscreen darkened, as the band of light momentarily vanished.

And then, a supernova. A miniature sun, glowing white with a shimmering blue corona, erupted from the Ark Mechanicus in an instant. It grew to consume most of the viewscreen and seemingly hung there, silent and glaring. Azrarach stared back at it, though even through the polarisation it was beginning to grow painful. He quietly counted down, ‘Three… two… one…’

A spherical shockwave spread from whatever remained of _Homeostasis_ , blowing the orb of burning plasma across the void. If there had been any debris, it would be melted to slag and ionised particles already. Cheers from the Highlander’s ship sounded briefly over the vox before it succumbed to the spilt radiation and sputtered into static. Without Void Shields herself, _Parthenope_ endured a brief power fluctuation as the bridge lights and instruments went out. When they came back, Azrarach looked down at his battlemap to see the lance projectile almost on top of his ship.

‘Brace,’ Azrarach said levelly. The replacement bosun, recently field promoted, echoed this command through the ship’s intercom. The deck was ripped out from under Azrarach’s feet as every panel around him conspired to explode and shower him with sparks. He hit his nose on the way down, spraying blood on his face and uniform even as he reached out for something to steady himself with. The lights flickered again, but this time did not seem content to come online again.

Somehow the alarms were still blaring, coupled with people screaming and crying for the Emperor to save them. To Azrarach, it seemed a little muffled, his vision blurry, before he noticed Interrogator Johansen standing over him.

‘Captain!’ he called, reaching down to examine him. Emergency lighting at last came on, and Azrarach blurrily noticed that Kit had been slashed across the face by flying shrapnel.

‘What’s our… status?’ Azrarach coughed, trying to stand. Kit helped him up, and leant him against his ruined command station.

‘It looks like the main power is offline. Crew’s half panicked, and the others are praying they can get some more information.’

‘The vox?’

Kit relayed this by shouting at someone. ‘They’re working on it,’ he told Azrarach.

Azrarach pulled a cloth from his coat and held it to his nose, tipping his head back. _Come on, Ladon, old chap. I pray I’m wrong, but I think this is all the time I can buy you!_

+++

Ladon drew his sword and ran for Tamburlaine. With his hand raised and supporting the ritual, Ladon could sense an opening. What he could not sense, however, was Fomal throwing Oderic aside and springing across the chamber with a single kick from his remaining foot. His hand slammed into Ladon, and they tumbled together. Ladon slashed blindly in a bid to free himself. Crippled as he was, Fomal could not give much of a fight. Ladon scrambled backwards while his head and optical mechadendrite swivelled to regain his bearings. The floor of the chamber was moving, he noticed, and heading deeper into that darkness behind the arch.

And the arch, well there was something pushing through now. Ladon reached his feet and staggered away from where Fomal lay, bleeding out. 

‘Tamburlaine…’ he growled. ‘What have you done?’

Tamburlaine turned to him at last. ‘I am bringing you an answer.’

Ladon heard a screech behind him, and turned to see a familiar Moritat assassin, currently executing the Halo Device in Fomal’s chest. She was soon joined by Krowe, while Oderic was trying to stabilise Zayn’s reaction to whatever Warp trickery Tamburlaine had caused.

‘Long time no see, Boss,’ Syra winked at Krowe. She also poked her tongue out at Ladon for a way of explanation as he stared at her and her ascendant sword.

Krowe gave only a smirk, and walked to stand directly besides Ladon. She raised her bolt pistol to Tamburlaine’s head and pulled the trigger. Tamburlaine’s eyes widened, and he swung his right hand towards her. The red glow caught the bolt round, suspending it in mid air for a moment before it clattered to the floor, but the ribbons of energy snapped. The flame wall surrounding the Ordo Necros and their replicae collapsed, and Syra took this opportunity to reach Thrones. Ladon used his mechadendrite to scan the ritual site while still facing Tamburlaine.

‘She’s still alive,’ Syra called. ‘But… I dunno, maybe a vegetable? Her eyes are open but she’s not doing anything. Come on, Thrones! It’s Syra, your Qalbi!’

The other Replicae seemed to be in a similar state, but the bodies of the Ordo Necros had been dessicated. Even as Syra fussed over Thrones, her movements disturbed their bodies. They swiftly crumbled to dust, leaving only the twisted metal remains of their Halo Devices, without a single light shining through.

Tamburlaine could only give his trademark smile, caught in a stalemate between his red right hand and Krowe’s bolt pistol. He opened his mouth to speak, but something moved from within the arch. All parties turned to examine it. 

A scarecrow, like 5 metres of raw meat, stepped gingerly forward on long, uncanny legs. It was towering, fierce; a nightmare made flesh. It moved to stand beside Tamburlaine, and lifted a nine-fingered hand to him. He held out his own free hand and waited for a small brass chrono to fall into his grasp. Tamburlaine grinned. 

‘Welcome to this cold realm, o loyal God mine.’

Krowe switched her aim to the nine-fingered corpse, but Tamburlaine lashed out at the air between them. Krowe was sent flying backwards, hitting her shoulder hard against the obsidian floor. Ladon snapped out of his daze at the sound of the crack, and drew his sword, but Tamburlaine pointed his hand at him.

‘Syra?’ Ladon called, hoping that she could somehow flank Tamburlaine. His mechadendrite caught her shimmering away into darkness. 

‘Do you realise who you stand before?’ Tamburlaine asked, before he began a spiel of sermon, ‘ _And no man looked to Malal then, save those that serve that which they hate, who smile upon their misfortune, and who bear no love save for the damned. At such times as a warrior's heart turns to Malal, all Gods of Chaos grow fearful, and the laughter of the Outcast God fills the tomb of space…_ ’


	19. Chapter 19

#  XIX.

Gaius led his warband through the entrance of the Tyrant Star’s keep, but halted at the edge of the precipice where once the ritual ground had stood. Now it was a few hundred meters away, noticeable against the infinite backdrop only by the eerie ghostlight that surrounded it.

‘Recommend snipers gain visual on point of interest,’ he ordered.

Cordas moved to the forefront, drawing his rifle as he crouched. He slid an optic cable from the scope and plugged it into his mask, now able to see with perfect magnification. 

‘Numerous individuals,’ he announced. ‘One Tech-priest, a crusader, three men, what appears to be a daemon, and I think several corpses.’

‘Tha’ one’s a woman ye daft idjit,’ Chey growled, standing nearby and peering through his rifle’s scope.

Cordas gave a heavy breath. ‘So you recognise these individuals?’

‘Aye. Tha’s Ladon and Krowe fer sure. I dinnae ken the others. Eh, but where’s Soira?’

‘Please confirm. Are you referring to my former accomplice Syra Fireheart?’ Gaius asked.

Chey burped, not realising he’d said that aloud. ‘No worry about it.’

‘Vait, Krowe is alive?’ Popov moved to Chey’s side as if he could also peer through his rifle. Chey practically hissed at him and hogged the scope. 

‘The Boss was always too crafty ta doi.’

‘And that’s the Tech-priest that Lark used to know?’

‘Aye.’

‘Vell this is very good news! Ve already have allies!’

‘Oh there’s Soira,’ Chey noted, seeing her rise from inspecting one of the lying bodies. He panned his view and noticed Krowe suddenly attacked. 

Cordas shouted, ‘The one next to the daemon has struck the other-’

Chey lowered the rifle and stuck his tongue out, trying to decide what to do. ‘Roight, I’m gonna have ta go over and help the wee bairns out.’

Prometheus piped up, ‘That course of action is illogical. You have a 0% chance of crossing that distance.’

‘I ain’t tha’ daft! I know wha’ I’m doin’.’ He slung the rifle over his back and held out a hand. A strange, twisted pistol made of shadows and starlight appeared in it, and the shadows seemed to spread up his arm and half over his chest. ‘Be back in a mo’.’

He vanished into a cloud of darkness.

Popov spluttered violently. ‘Vhat on the Golden Throne vas…’

‘He  _ was  _ referring to Syra! I had read reports that she was dead,’ Gaius mused. ‘Regardless it appears Chey also possesses her peculiar brand of psychic powers.’

‘I cannot compute a response,’ said Prometheus.

+++

‘From great hate and hunger, oh Lord of the Void, may you bring a warm darkness to these wastes!’ Tamburlaine cried.

‘Heretic!’ Oderic cried, raising his blade. ‘We shall strike you and this daemon down!’

The nine-fingered form of Malal seemed content to stand at Tamburlaine’s shoulder with nothing more than a deranged rictus grin.

‘Ingrateful dogs,’ Tamburlaine said. ‘Do you not realise I stand here prepared to wipe away your sins?’

‘All of this, just to come up against old Chaos,’ said Zayn, bleeding from his gums as he clenched his teeth against the influence of Malal. ‘It’s almost disappointing.’

‘My son, you are blind! Chaos is not my goal, nor my loyal Renegade God’s. We want only silence.’

A bolt round whizzed past Tamburlaine’s shoulder as Krowe found her feet again, panting through the pain of a broken shoulder. ‘My homeworld, Atrai? Piece of shit. But I’ll be damned if I ever asked you or your Emperor-damned star to wipe it clean.’ She pulled the trigger again, but the magazine turned up empty.

‘My dear child,’ Tamburlaine replied, lowering his head. ‘Your eyes are simply yet to-’

‘What!? What is this…’ Ladon spluttered, starting from his apparent daze.

‘Ladon, my friend,’ Oderic began, laying a hand on his shoulder, ‘we have reached the end of our quest. There is one more monster to slay. Now is not the time to ponder why.’

‘No, wait… how?’

Zayn frowned and almost lowered his guard as he glanced at Ladon. ‘Your cogitator fried?’

‘No, but Syra… she…’

‘I think your assassin friend knows what she’s doing,’ Oderic said.

‘Ah yes,’ said Tamburlaine, snapping his gaze up once more. ‘I suppose you could consider dear Miss Fireheart your mentor in a way, Tech-priest. Without her you would never have beaten Enshaadr.’ He swung his red right hand and seemed to pluck Syra from the Ascendant Realm itself, where she had been poised to leap forth and attack him. She scrabbled at his hand as he strangled her. ‘I suppose now is your chance to give your thanks. I will not give her a chance to hide her death this time.’

‘You knew she was there that time…’ Ladon pondered. His gaze met that of Malal. Its eyes glowed with some silent emotion he could not recognise.

‘I think you’re right,’ Tamburlaine said as an aside. ‘In that-’

A bolt of silvery energy flew past Tamburlaine’s ear and stuck into the arch behind him, before it exploded. 

‘It’s the gun-shade,’ Tamburlaine announced, darting aside as Chey moved from across the platform. ‘Destroy him!’

Malal moved as if It only existed at odd moments, like a stop-motion pict-vid, as It closed the gap towards Chey. Chey opened fire with a few more rounds, but Malal phased through their trajectories before arriving within arms reach. Chey watched time slow to a crawl as Malal’s fingers tore through his chest.

+++

Across the chasm, Cordas swore. ‘Chey just got eliminated by the daemon.’

‘Open fire, idiot! Vhy’d you let that happen!?’ Popov cried.

‘I cannot get a bead on the target; it seems to phase in and out of the materium.’

‘Oh my, this is a terrible time to receive a buffering loop in my memorance implants,’ Gaius said.

Prometheus raised his arm, and his servo-skull returned to him. ‘I have acquired closer visual data. With calculations from spectral analysis and weapon’s fire rate, you should be able to achieve a guaranteed hit with 96 shots plus/minus 22.’ 

‘I have a 10 round magazine, Tech-priest. Unless you can pray enough so these Machine Spirits will fire the gun some other way.’

Popov bounced from foot to foot, completely unused to being helpless and at range. 

+++

‘Damn you!’ Oderic shouted. Tamburlaine turned and threw him aside with his strange power. Ladon grabbed Krowe and ran to take cover behind the arch. He examined her broken shoulder while she worked on reloading her pistol with one hand. Zayn was swinging his swords against an invisible barrier held by Tamburlaine. 

‘This daemon is playing tricks on me again,’ Ladon cursed, trying to reset Krowe’s joint.

‘Ladon, please say something that makes sense,’ Krowe growled. She placed a magazine in her mouth and then slid the bolt pistol onto it.

‘This already happened to us. Malal killed Chey, Syra jumped Tamburlaine and opened his throat, and-’

‘Syra is dead, Ladon.’

‘I know! That’s what I’m saying!’

Zayn went flying past and then Tamburlaine rounded the corner, leveling his hand with Ladon’s head. Krowe shoved him aside despite his protests and put a round through Tamburlaine’s skull. Tamburlaine’s expression went blank and his smile finally faded as he tipped backwards.

‘Listen to me!’ Ladon shouted. ‘Last time you did that all that happened was that damned chrono caused everything to-’

+++

‘...Reset.’ Ladon tilted his head. 

‘...may you bring a warm darkness to these wastes!’ Tamburlaine cried. Ladon stared at him.

‘Heretic!’ Oderic cried, raising his blade. ‘We shall strike you and this daemon down!’

The nine-fingered form of Malal seemed content to stand at Tamburlaine’s shoulder with nothing more than a deranged rictus grin.

‘Ingrateful dogs,’ Tamburlaine said. ‘Do you not realise I stand here prepared to wipe away your sins?’

‘All of this, just to come up against old Chaos,’ said Zayn, bleeding from his gums as he clenched his teeth against the influence of Malal. Ladon turned to look at him now. ‘It’s almost disappointing.’

‘My son, you are blind! Chaos is not my goal, nor my loyal Renegade God’s. We want only silence.’

A bolt round whizzed past Tamburlaine’s shoulder as Krowe found her feet again, panting through the pain of a broken shoulder. ‘My homeworld, Atrai? Piece of shit. But I’ll be damned if I ever asked you or your Emperor-damned star to wipe it clean.’ She pulled the trigger again, but the magazine turned up empty.

‘My dear child,’ Tamburlaine replied, lowering his head. ‘Your eyes are simply yet to open. You lack the stomach for it.’

Ladon reviewed his memorance implant, and found only a strange buffering loop.

‘I have seen your kind before,’ Tamburlaine continued, ‘time and time again. Every secret must be found, every fleeing man caught. But in the end, you stand there and you cannot answer why.’

‘Damnable artifact!’ Ladon shouted, drawing attention to himself.

Tamburlaine’s smile twisted into something more like a grimace as he glanced at Malal. ‘Even so, it should not be happening like this,’ he addressed It.

Ladon opened fire with his heavy stubber as he shoved his team back. ‘Get to cover!’

Oderic swore as he threw himself to the side, while Krowe and Zayn ran for the arch. Tamburlaine flinched from the incoming fire but held up his barrier. Syra materialised and swung her blade at him, but Malal moved to intercept. Her attack turned into a hurried parry that diverted the majority of the claws raking across her, but two jagged tears opened on her abdomen. She fell backwards with a cry of pain. Malal was about to pounce on her, but a silvery bullet slipped through Its shoulder. Malal snapped Its attention to Chey.

‘Chey!’ Ladon shouted. ‘Get out of here!’

The medic opened fire at Malal with his Taken pistol, and opened fire at Ladon with a string of curses. This time it was Tamburlaine who leapt across the platform, while Malal began to fence with Syra. 

‘Alroight ye fekkin clown-smilin’ bastard,’ Chey growled, firing at the new opponent. Tamburlaine twisted aside and drove his fingers through Chey’s chest. A spray of gore and bone erupted from his back.

Ladon cursed, and tried to drive Malal away from Syra with his sword. The Renegade God was able to match their combined assault with ease.

‘Tell me at least  _ you _ remember,’ Ladon said to Syra.

‘Remember what?’ she squealed as she narrowly avoided a blow. Her own attack simply fit through the moments where Malal chose not to exist. She swore.

Ladon tried to explain quickly in between fighting for his life. ‘Tamburlaine has a chrono which is letting him reset things. I don’t know how it really works, but every time things don’t go his way…’ 

From across the chasm, Cordas put his crosshairs onto Tamburlaine’s head as he turned away from Chey, 

‘...he manages to make everything re-’ 

Cordas pulled the trigger.

+++ 

‘Heretic!’ Oderic cried, raising his blade. ‘We shall strike you and this daemon down!’

The nine-fingered form of Malal seemed content to stand at Tamburlaine’s shoulder with nothing more than a deranged rictus grin.

‘Ingrateful dogs,’ Tamburlaine said. ‘Do you not realise I stand here prepared to wipe away your sins?’

‘All of this, just to come up against old Chaos,’ said Zayn, bleeding from his gums as he clenched his teeth against the influence of Malal. ‘It’s almost disappointing.’

‘My son, you are blind! Chaos is not my goal, nor my loyal Renegade God’s. We want only silence.’

A bolt round whizzed past Tamburlaine’s shoulder as Krowe found her feet again, panting through the pain of a broken shoulder. ‘My homeworld, Atrai? Piece of shit. But I’ll be damned if I ever asked you or your Emperor-damned star to wipe it clean.’ She pulled the trigger again, but the magazine turned up empty.

‘My dear child,’ Tamburlaine replied, lowering his head. ‘Your eyes are simply yet to open. You lack the stomach for it.’

‘I have seen your kind before,’ Tamburlaine continued, ‘time and time again. Every secret must be found, every fleeing man caught. But in the end, you stand there and you cannot answer why.’

‘You were the one who offered me answers,’ Ladon growled. ‘What foolishness are you speaking now?’

Tamburlaine paused, as if thinking something through. ‘It stands before you right now. All you need do is submit.’

It was Ladon’s turn to pause. He took a step forward. 

‘Ladon?’ Oderic reached for Ladon’s arm, but the Tech-priest moved aside, waving him off.

‘Oderic I think I understand now.’

Oderic watched in horror as Tamburlaine’s smile grew and he reached forward. 

Ladon spun and flourished the sword that blinked into his hand. It arced upwards in a flash, and then Tamburlaine could only stare as his own hand went flying. Ladon plucked the chrono from the air and kicked Tamburlaine in the chest. Malal jumped towards him, but Syra was able to appear and intercepted the swipe.

‘What is this thing?’ she cried, already falling back with Ladon.

‘A forgotten Chaos God,’ Ladon replied, stowing the chrono within his robe.

‘It’s a  _ God _ ?’ Syra spat.

Ladon swung at Malal’s wrist as a set of claws came flying towards him. The blade severed the wet, bloody flesh and the fingers erupted into mist, only for them to rematerialise as It pulled away, though the blow had been averted. ‘God is too broad a word,’ Ladon admitted. ‘My hypothesis is that Malal is in fact an Avatar of Chaos itself.’

Syra let out a whistle and then ducked a blow that would’ve taken her head off. She opened her mouth to reply to Ladon, and suddenly looked confused as an Avalonian warcry came loose. Oderic’s shoulder crashed into the side of Malal, and he drove his warblade down through Its neck. Like the hand Ladon had severed, Oderic could only temporarily disfigure the beast. Even with his training against the foes of the Immaterium and his sanctified tools, Oderic’s furious swings were met only with frustration.

‘Fall back,’ Ladon suggested.

‘To where?’ Oderic and Syra replied.

Ladon emitted binaric curses. ‘Perhaps… where is Chey?’

Tamburlaine, bleeding and confused, stumbled away from the swirling melee, cursing in an ancient tongue. ‘Impossible. How did he foresee any of…’

‘ _ Dia duit _ ,’ Chey said, pointing his pistol to the back of Tamburlaine’s head. Tamburlaine froze as he heard the hammer click back. 

Tamburlaine turned his head just enough that he could examine Chey out the corner of his eye. ‘My child, what ill fate befell you to graft that weapon to your soul?’

‘Oi popped a fella actin’ a bit like yerself,’ Chey admitted with a shrug. His ears pricked when he heard Ladon call his name, instinctively glancing that way. When he did, Tamburlaine spun far faster than he had any right to, and sent his fist into Chey’s chest. Chey half dodged in time to not have his guts spilt, but the blow knocked him on his rear. 

Tamburlaine cried, ‘Destroy them all, o loyal God mine!’ and then vanished into the Ascendant Realm. Chey picked himself up, and was about to give chase when Ladon called him again. He cursed and moved towards the melee.

‘What do ye want, fekkin cog boy? Ye just let yer red-handed man escape!’

Ladon recognised that but didn’t have time to react as he fought to contain Malal. ‘Get over there and talk to Zayn about figuring out how that portal in the arch works!’

Chey looked like he wanted to argue the stupidity of that, but Syra seemed to notice his reluctance, and as she had a space to breath in the fight she gave him a withering glare. 

‘Foine, but I en’t making any promises!’ He skirted the Chaos… thing, and found Zayn near the arch already, trying to give Krowe some help with her broken shoulder.

‘Ye’re Zayn?’

‘Yeah, I heard what Ladon wanted,’ Zayn replied.

‘Yer doin tha’ wrong. Here…’ he pushed Zayn aside and began to apply a sling from his chirurgeon’s kit.

‘I must say, the resemblance is uncanny.’

‘Eh?’

‘Between you and the Highlander.’

‘We ain’t really related, ye know.’

Zayn frowned at that, unsure how to even respond, let alone argue.

‘Here’s me fixin ye up as usual, eh Boss?’

‘Thank you, Chey,’ Krowe grunted.

‘It’ll do fer now, but Oi’ll have to surgerise it later.’

‘So… you also know about this Sword Logic stuff?’ Zayn asked.

‘Aye. Well, not so much. Soira was the one who got proper into it, the absolute nerd that she is.’

‘This is going to go terribly…’ Zayn muttered. With his eyes glowing white, he raised his hand to the arch and focused his skills of psyniscience in an attempt to decipher its strange sorcery.

+++

Gaius finally spoke. ‘A solution: I could pilot the Arvus Lighter through the door, and transport all of us to the platform with our allies and the daemon.’

Popov leapt to his feet. ‘Absolutely! Let us be going!’

‘There is a 47% chance that you will damage the shuttle’s wing structure upon collision with the door frame should you make a piloting error,’ Prometheus growled.

‘I can manage it,’ Gaius replied.

‘I’ll stay here,’ Cordas said. ‘A sniper’s no good in melee.’

‘Affirmative.’ Gaius began to lead Popov and Prometheus back to the surface of the Tyrant Star, and upon reaching the staircase he looked up to see a new ship had joined the  _ Tiberian Sun _ in orbit. ‘Ah, are these additional reinforcements?’

‘An Emperor-class Battlecruiser,’ Prometheus chimed. Unlike Gaius and Ladon, he only had implants covering the lower half of his face, so was able to frown as he examined its appearance. ‘Those are not Imperial weapons.’

‘Vell the Inquisitor has not opened fire upon it. This is a good sign, no?’

‘Perhaps. X13-58, can you make out any sign of the fleet battle that was already in the system?’

‘Affirmative. Only two ships are showing running lights. No weapons fire.’

‘Well, it looks like someone has claimed victory,’ Gaius chimed.

+++

Both  _ Ruber Manum Dex _ and  _ Parthenope _ were dead in the void now, and drifting away from each other. The latter was already steadily falling under the influence of Zinliv’s gravity, but this no longer concerned Azrarach as he made his way to the hangar bay. What shuttles and transports remained intact after a near-catastrophic chain reaction along the ship’s keel were being prepared to evacuate to the  _ Pride of Gladtonius _ . 

Azrarach had waited for many agonising minutes while the enginseer crew had attempted to repair a damaged plasma tank, only for it to rupture and take out most of the enginarium. After that,  _ Parthenope _ had been largely exempt from the fight, which devolved to the Highlander and Romana tearing apart  _ Between the Bars _ while the already crippled  _ Ruber _ could only float silently with no ability to maneuver to a better targeting vector.

Evacuation was only ordered when Azrarach’s allies could guarantee the fleeing vessels would not be cut down by interceptor fire. Romana had additionally lamented that her Teleportarium was damaged, amongst several other major systems. In fact, the  _ Pride _ seemed the least affected by the combat. Either the Highlander and his crew were exceptionally gifted naval combatants, or the venerable Star Galleon and its array of archaeotech and xenos artifice was capable of punching far above its weight class. Azrarach would’ve been happy enough if the answer to that question was a combination of the two.

But presently, there were not enough functional vehicles to carry every crew member even if they were packed beyond maximum capacity. A great throng of officers, crew, slaves, Tech-priests and their servitors, Navigators, the ship’s Confessor and Ecclesiarchal enclave, and the remaining security forces of the 11th Epsiloid Foxes were pressed against each other, organised into crowds based on faction and rank alone. Kit Johannes stood near the entrance ramp of one of the shuttles, trying to shout his orders to the crowd.

‘Listen! Those of Naval rank, the Navis Nobilite, and the Adeptus Mechanicus possess highest priority, as their souls are closer to the Emperor than those of the menials!’

A Tempestor pushed his way through the crowd. ‘And what of the Emperor’s finest?’

‘You will follow the orders I give you, by your honour to His Throne.’

The murmuring amongst the crowd rose then to the realisation that Kit Johannes truly was ordering people to lay down and die. Loyalty to the Emperor was one thing, but loyalty to the right-hand of a deposed Inquisitor was a much harder pill to swallow. Now even the chosen elites were arguing amongst themselves as it became clear that even they would be hard pressed to fit into the meagre transports. The Tech-priests kicked the biggest fuss, citing that the Omnissiah Himself would smite the machines stolen from his disciples should anyone try to leave without them. The Navigator house representatives began to threaten great damnation from the guilds on Terra to any that forsook those great and vital mutants who allow the Imperium to spread beyond single star systems. The officers hoped that they still inspired enough fear to protect them from the desperate crewmen they had once exploited. A riot was about to break out, and the first to go amongst such violence would be the evacuation vessels. Of this Azrarach held no doubt. As he marched down the staircase that led to the hangar floor, his hand twitched to a holster on his chest. He drew Belladonna, snapped her barrel towards Kit’s head, and squeezed the trigger. Kit’s head cracked backwards and his body collapsed, leaving the interior of the Arvus Lighter he’d apparently chosen for himself covered in blood.

‘There will be no revolt here,’ Azrarach called, still slowly descending the stairs. ‘There will be no special treatment of the elite or revenge for the downtrodden. I ask only one question: who here can say that they did their duty to serve the Emperor in battle today?’

Azrarach allowed a small smile to cross his face as several crewmen made the sign of the Aquila on their chest. At first it was a few isolated gestures, but the movement gained speed quickly, and soon every person standing in the hangar of the  _ Parthenope _ displayed to Azrarach their loyalty to the Emperor on the Golden Throne of Terra.

‘Very good,’ said Azrarach. ‘Then you are all prepared to die. You already signed away your lives the moment you began moving to keep this ship in the fight. And that fight is not over yet. Your lives are still the Emperor’s, and only He shall say who lives and dies here. So I ask, who here is willing to continue the fight at the Emperor’s side?’

The enthusiasm was suddenly lessened. Doubt began to crawl into people’s minds: Had not this captain said what Kit had said, but in prettier words? He was asking them to die!

An old priest, his face carrying as many wrinkles as he doubtless knew verses of the Lectitio Divinitatus, raised his trembling hand. ‘I will stay,’ he said. ‘I have served the Emperor all of my life, and I will be happy to be at His side. He will receive my sacrifice with great joy.’

Azrarach watched with bemusement as his fellow priests began to murmur amongst themselves. Soon it became clear that the younger members were trying to pressure other older priests to sacrifice themselves for their peers’ sakes. A few more priests raised their hands and declared their willingness to join the Emperor.

Across the hangar, the Quartermaster raised his hand. ‘It is, and always will be, my duty to provide for the people of this ship. My final act shall be as I have lived.’

An old, yet low ranking, enginseer raised his hand and several mechadendrites. ‘I have served this vessel’s Machine Spirit since the days where I was still mostly flesh. I will die with her, and my steel will be her steel.’

‘I would rather die here than live on knowing I murdered my brothers in arms.’

‘The Emperor shall welcome me, as I will welcome His embrace.’

‘As the Emperor wills, I shall obey!’

And so on, the crowd of martyrs and noble spirits carried on growing, until Azrarach deemed the time was right and raised his hand to call for silence. 

‘We have no more time to lose, as our lovely vessel enters her death throes. It is time now to abandon her. But the memories of her and her most loyal crew will live on. Those of you with your hands in the air, willing to die for your brothers, sisters, and Emperor; you shall lead the way aboard our vessels. And those of you who were not brave, who were content to let your peers sacrifice themselves for your sake; let those of you who can bear that guilt step forward with them, and share their gaze. You have chosen for yourselves who lives and who dies.’

Azrarach at last descended the staircase, and the crowd parted for him to move into a shuttle. Of the people who believed they would die, most of them found the way cleared for them as well. At first they moved with reluctance, and indeed many declared that they would keep their word and gave blessing to their neighbours to take their place, but soon the shuttles were filled neatly. Those who could indeed bear their guilt joined their selfless fellows, while those who had been too prideful for martyrdom were now cowed by the heavy weight of their own folly. 

There was no protest. Azrarach was right: every person inside this hangar had been offered a chance to continue the fight, but only a few had shown strength enough to do so. The shuttles ignited their engines and began to evacuate, one by one. Azrarach would pilot his own shuttle, and waited until his was the last. As he stood at the rear door, he saluted the people who remained. ‘The Emperor will remember your sacrifices only as long as you remember what you have learnt today.’

He turned and entered the cockpit, and before long he left behind the blessed doomed to their own form of salvation, while he directed his vessel through the cold void, to the temporary succor of the  _ Pride of Gladtonius _ , before he would no doubt continue to serve in the endless fight that any servant of the Emperor faces every day.

+++

Oderic was already tired from the non-stop struggles of the day already, and Syra’s bloodlust would no doubt outpace her own body’s limit. Ladon alone relied on the strength of his cybernetics, as the living metal scarabs began their work on wounds from the instant they were carved into him. But it was his mind, the closest thing he had to actual humanity, that could fail eventually. As he weaved parries in between his blows against an utterly relentless, seemingly immortal enemy, he wondered just how long they could hold against It. They needed a plan yesterday, but right now that was up to Zayn and Chey. 

As Malal’s claws dug through his arm, nearly severing it, he hopped backwards and dropped his sword to a one-handed grip. 

‘Any progress?’ he called, his patience being the first thing to truly break.

‘...So it’s basically a bit of both?’ Krowe asked.

Zayn and Chey both nodded. 

‘Well, what are you going to do?’

‘Can Oi trade places with Soira? Oi feel like she’d understand this better.’

Krowe raised an eyebrow at that request, which prompted Chey to look over his shoulder. Syra and Oderic were covered in countless deep lacerations from Malal’s claws, while Ladon had lost several mechadendrites again.

‘At least it looks loike she’s havin fun,’ he groused.

‘Focus, man!’ Zayn snapped. ‘We’ve got a Chaos artifact which operates as a Warp portal, but it also runs off the same paracausal things that you weirdos play with. That means it will, overall, run off willpower and our ability to shape our thoughts, yeah?’

‘Aye.’

‘Sounds… plausible,’ Krowe admitted.

‘Right, so the question is: What do we actually want it to do?’

Chey raised his hand as if he had an answer, then lowered it. He pursed his lips and picked at one of his ears with the barrel of his pistol.

‘Can you banish It?’ Krowe suggested. She sat up straight and winced as her shoulder sent out spikes of pain. ‘Utterly reverse what happened before?’

‘I’m looking back at that ritual Tamburlaine did,’ Zayn said. ‘Four elements and Chaos itself. How would we counter that?’

Chey stood up and placed his hands on the arch. ‘Begone ye fekkin beastie!’ he shouted.

‘What are you-’

With a screech, a portal appeared within the circumference of the arch. Zayn and Chey looked at each other.

‘You’re a damned genius.’

‘Thank ye.’

Ladon saw the portal open. ‘Try and force It backwards,’ he told Syra and Oderic. Syra nodded, and Oderic gave a mighty cry before charging at Malal. He wrapped his arms around Its midriff and began to push. Ladon and Syra fought to keep the claws off him. Fighting three on one, Malal began to lose ground step by step.

Oderic began chanting litanies to the Emperor, praying for strength and the Emperor’s guiding light.

Ladon held his sword vertically to deflect a blow aimed at his neck. Locked in the stance, he tried to fire his ballistic mechadendrite instead, but when Malal broke away It targeted that next and severed it. Ladon tensed, almost insulted by the defilement of his precious cybernetics, and pressed a heavy attack. This only turned into a foolish move which compromised his guard. Malal’s claws swept in, scraping over his chest plate until Its fingers made contact with the chrono. Ladon knew immediately what happened when Oderic and Syra suddenly froze. He leapt backwards, clutching his hand back to the fold of his robe. The chrono was still there, and he withdrew it carefully. Malal’s empty eyes darted to it, staring with some sort of longing.

‘Standing right before me…’ Ladon said, looking between the chrono and the pitiful creature before him. ‘Yes, I understand.’ He drew his arm back, and hurled the chrono through the portal.

Time resumed, but Ladon did not attack. Instead, he watched as Malal twisted from Oderic’s grip, pushed Syra away from It, and then bounded through the portal to retrieve the artefact. Ladon cycled the air in his bionic lungs, adjusted the grip on his sword, and moved to follow it.

‘Ladon!’ Zayn called. ‘What the frak are you doing? I’ve got to close it!’

‘No,’ Ladon said, gesturing sharply. ‘I know how I’m going to end this.’

Oderic ran forward to stand in the way of Ladon. ‘I cannot let you do this!’

‘Oderic…’

Oderic’s next words only came after he swallowed back a tremble in his voice. ‘You stopped me from needlessly martyring myself once, now I shall return the favour.’

Ladon laughed. ‘Oh do not be so dramatic.’ He pushed the stunned Oderic gently aside, and strode through the portal.


	20. Chapter 20

# XX.

Of course, Tamburlaine waited beyond the gate upon a throne carved from pulsing, jagged mercury. His presence, both physical and psyche, was so much larger in this swirling maelstrom of broken glass and stars that was his own cyst universe. Malal stood at the foot of the throne, clutching desperately at the chrono.

‘O adversary mine...’ Tamburlaine drawled as the portal behind Ladon closed. The voice sounded as if it came from everywhere, but Ladon’s bionic ears told him it in fact came from inside his own head. Ladon bristled instinctively, recognising that curse for what it was. Tamburlaine was trying to claim him, as he had the deluded Astropath Caluin, as he had his co-conspirators at the cusp of his betrayal, and as he had the Avatar at his feet.

‘I know what you have done, one who calls himself “Tamburlaine”.’

‘Oho? Then put actions to words, Tech-priest.’

Ladon would’ve smirked if he still had the lips to do so. ‘It will be undone by your death.’ Ladon pointed his sword towards Tamburlaine, challenging him to descend from his mercurial throne.

‘So be it,’ Tamburlaine replied, pushing himself from where he rested and taking a step to fall towards the floor before the Avatar. When he landed, six tendrils of oily darkness had sprouted from his spine. In his newly reformed left hand, Tamburlaine held a long-handled scythe while his red right hand glowed like smoky blood as he curled his fingers. 

Ladon drew his sword back in response, taking a high guard position, before dashing forwards. Tamburlaine swung with his weapon, blocking Ladon’s thrust, while reaching out with his hand. A black flame sprung forth, clinging to Ladon’s robes and eating at the steel underneath. Ladon pulled his sword upwards to break out of Tamburlaine’s guard before reversing the movement to bring it towards Tamburlaine’s head. Tamburlaine shifted, momentarily vanishing like a wraith, to avoid the blow. One of his tendrils snaked over Ladon’s guard and pierced his shoulder. Ladon let out a static burst as the foul sorcery dug through his implants and began to spread out. He retaliated by striking at the tendril itself, severing it about halfway through its length. He fell backwards and probed the wound, glad to see that whatever shadows had entered him were now evaporating.

Tamburlaine gave no pause to this distraction and swept his right hand upwards. The glass at their feet rippled and shattered and great stakes burst through like a garden of thorns. Ladon threw himself aside to avoid being impaled, and landed on his side. He saw Tamburlaine leap high into the air, and rolled onto his back to bring his sword up to guard against the plunging attack. Tamburlaine landed heavily, legs straddling the prone Tech-priest, as sparks flew from the collision of their weapons. As they struggled against each other’s strength, Tamburlaine moved his hand towards Ladon’s head. Ladon opened fire with his heavy stubber, causing Tamburlaine to flinch away as bullets tore through the cloak of shadows that made up his body. Tamburlaine regained composure quickly, and with a roar he stomped hard on Ladon’s abdomen, crushing several of the weapon’s components.

Ladon twisted his lower body and kicked out at one of Tamburlaine’s legs. When his knee buckled, Ladon swung at him. Tamburlaine blocked and leapt away. His wraith-like form seemed torn and tattered, though he soon took a deep breath and stood tall again. Ladon found himself examining the skin of his face, and decided it looked like a rubber mask that had been shifted. His eyes and nose were scrunched and off-center, but that hideous oversized grin remained in place.

When Tamburlaine spoke, neither his lips nor teeth moved. ‘This dance has gone on enough now, Tech-priest. You have already delivered what I desired. My plan has already been completed.’

‘Octavia,’ Ladon growled. ‘You wanted Octavia. You needed me there at your ritual to remember her; to call her forth as a morsel for your deluded God.’

From the foot of the mercurial throne, the nine-fingered corpse stirred, at last looking from her chrono to see Ladon and Tamburlaine. 

Despite everything, Tamburlaine’s smile growed. ‘Do you know what happened to your dear scribe? With the chrono she had stolen, she destroyed herself. In doing so, she opened her eyes. She replaced herself and the memory of herself with naught but strength, and became the Avatar of Time. But she was mortally wounded on the world of Cazador at the hands of the Dreg and the Priest - servants of the one true Forgotten Tyrant.’

‘And how then did you get your hands on her?’

‘I did not,’ Tamburlaine said. ‘You did. The Devourer led you to where she had hid to lick her wounds, and from there I fought to lead you to where you stand.’

Ladon tilted his head. ‘You’re in league with Lexi?’

‘No such thing, Tech-priest. But I have long practised how to appropriate the schemes of others.’ At this, Tamburlaine sighed. ‘You had such potential, Tech-priest. Even with your eyes closed, you could see so much. Perhaps more than you were meant to.’

Tamburlaine flourished his scythe and gripped it with both hands before he shifted towards Ladon. His blade slashed twice as Ladon dodged backwards. Even as Tamburlaine closed in to counter the movement, from behind him appeared another pair of crimson slashes. Ladon instinctively recognised this as something troubling, but his present mind was occupied with parrying the hurricane of slashes that Tamburlaine was throwing his way. His hands moved on their own as his sword leapt between six different angles that Tamburlaine’s blows came from, before he detected a chance to counter attack. He slipped his blade downwards after parrying a horizontal swing and thrust forward. His flaming blade struck Tamburlaine’s chest, creating a wound in the fabric of shadow the cloaked Tamburlaine. Ladon took a grim amount of satisfaction at seeing darkness leak out like underwater smoke before his vision was suddenly filled with alert runes at major damage to his systems. But Tamburlaine hadn’t moved…

Ladon staggered backwards, examining six deep fissures in his armour and body. The edges of the wounds glowed crimson, and only now did Ladon recall actually seeing the crimson after-images that had just butchered him. He glanced up in time to see Tamburlaine fly towards him with an overhead swing. Ladon raised his sword to block, but his movements were sluggish. Hydrocarbons and oils sprayed from severed tubing, and a grating click indicated that some internal servo had come loose. Sparks flew from his shoulder joint as it struggled to compensate against Tamburlaine’s force. Of course, Ladon was left completely open to being impaled by Tamburlaine’s five tendrils. 

Ladon spluttered something that was neither Gothic nor the cant of Techna-lingua as he twisted against the shadows digging through his form. Tamburlaine’s first move was to sever Ladon’s sword arm before grabbing his chin, or the tubes that sprouted over it, so as to force the Tech-priest to gaze at him. As Ladon’s sword extinguished and vanished, he found himself immobilised.

‘All I wanted was peace,’ Tamburlaine admitted. ‘I am so sick of the stars that burn so loudly, and of the parasites that suckle at their celestial teats. Do you understand this?’

Ladon remained silent, though he tried to struggle against Tamburlaine’s tendrils. He only needed to…

‘My brothers and sisters were deluded enough to believe that they may rule over this galaxy. I asked, “ _Why?_ ”. Who would want to rule over a rotting carcass? What fool would call themselves a Lord of Carrion?’ Tamburlaine laughed at this pointed reference, but grew angrier when Ladon refused to join. He leaned closer, shaking the Tech-priest violently. ‘You _are_ a fool, aren’t you?’ he cried, almost with indignation. ‘Allow me to-’

A blade of liquid, living metal shot forth from Ladon’s left arm, striking Tamburlaine in the temple before it hardened with a green glow. Ladon levered it upwards until it burst free, covered in smoky underwater darkness. Tamburlaine’s tendrils slackened, leaving Ladon to crumple to the ground like a sack of spare parts. He staggered backwards as his head began to further split open, revealing a bright light burning through the wound in his facade.

Ladon slowly stood, swaying dangerously. He raised the Callidus Phase sword to examine it. It had bound perfectly to the necrodermis he had long ago infected his body with.

[Adaptability]

He limped forward to Tamburlaine, who was bent over clutching his head and grunting against whatever pain a being like him could feel. His scythe had been discarded, and his tendrils had shrunk back into his tattered shadowy coat. As he noticed Ladon he tried to raise his hand to defend himself, but Ladon swung the Phase sword through his wrist. Tamburlaine howled and fell backwards, kicking out as he tried to crawl away. His face had melted away, revealing nothing more than a maw attached to an orb of sickly, ravenous starlight. Ladon’s eye lenses glared down at him as he slashed again. Tamburlaine fell onto his back, and Ladon stepped forward onto his chest.

‘Glory to the Omnissiah, and the path to Comprehension,’ Ladon chanted, before thrusting the blade into Tamburlaine’s head. The ensuing scream was not a vocal noise, but instead alike to the sound of a star that was violently burning away. Ladon was half prepared to be immolated in the resulting explosion, but leaned in harder, pressing the blade deeper into Tamburlaine’s oblivion. At last there was a blinding flash that pierced even his protective photo lenses, and when Ladon could lift his eyes from his raised arm, it took several refreshes to recover his vision. 

Tamburlaine’s body was gone, apart from the Halo Device which had resided in his hand. As Ladon ground this to dust with his bootheel, the storm that surrounded Tamburlaine’s melting throne had turned violent. The ground and sky were unstable in equal parts, but Ladon saw the portal was reopened. He began to limp towards it, but remembered why he’d come through in the first place.

He turned to the Forgotten Avatar. Both Malal and Octavia at once. Ladon muttered a curse and began the agonising limp towards it, made all the more difficult by the howling winds and fragments of stone and glass that were beginning to rain down.

‘So you’re the essence of Chaos,’ he said, raising his vox volume to be heard over the wind. ‘Its Avatar, Malal. But, you’re bound to another form. Octavia, the Avatar of Time.’ Ladon wasn’t sure if he expected a reaction from this bizarre hybrid, but he continued talking. ‘Tamburlaine did this because he found out he would be able to control a God by binding it to this chrono. You tried to warn me, but I couldn’t understand. I am sorry I cursed you to this fate.’

Ladon reached for the chrono in the hybrid’s hand. ‘Malal, return to the outcast realms from whence you came. And Octavia, be free.’ He extended his Phase sword once more, and drove it through the device. Instead of shattering, it appeared to boil and melt. Its molten components ran through the hybrid’s claws, and it began to howl. Ladon turned and left it covering its head as it realised what fate befell it now, untethered but abandoned within this dying plane.

+++

Ladon fell through the portal into the waiting arms of Zayn and Oderic. It sputtered out as they dragged him forward and lay him carefully down.

‘Are you alright?’ Oderic begged him.

‘Affirmative. My repair systems have me at 43% operational capacity.’

‘What happened in there?’

‘I defeated Tamburlaine. Trapped Malal. Freed Octavia.’

‘Octavia?’ Krowe asked, moving to kneel beside Ladon. ‘What do you mean Octavia?’

‘She didn’t just disappear,’ he chuckled. ‘She somehow turned herself into an Avatar of Time when she fiddled too much with that chrono of hers.’

Krowe fought to keep her confusion showing too plainly on her face. ‘And this business here?’

‘Tamburlaine tracked her down and used her to put a leash on Malal.’

Krowe sat back on her haunches and stroked her chin. ‘How very curious.’

Syra made a shocked noise which suddenly drew everyone’s attention. Knowing that it was too early to rest on their laurels, most of the team drew their weapons and sprung into ready stances. But Syra presently had her arms tangled around the upright form of Fifty Thrones, who stared bewilderedly at the others over Syra’s shoulder. The other replicae were also stirring, prompting Zayn to move up to examine them.

‘They’re alive,’ he announced. To Syra and Thrones he suggested that they should get a room.

‘I’m so sorry I had to abandon you,’ Syra blubbered, ignoring Zayn. ‘But Kantor would’ve…’

‘Shh, that’s enough of that, Qalbi,’ Thrones replied. 

‘I cannot imagine what hell you have been to and back.’

‘I do not remember most of it. It feels like… a nightmare.’ When at last she untangled herself from the tear-soaked assassin, she began to move forward to thank Ladon, Zayn and Oderic for their evidently untiring effort to retrieve her. However, she stopped to watch a small shuttle begin to approach the platform, trailing smoke from one of its wings.

‘Oh,’ said Chey. ‘Tha’d be me team.’

‘Your team?’ Ladon asked as he sat to scrutinise him.

‘Oh yea, Oi didn’t arrive here on a whim. Soira plucked me from the rest of Kantor’s acolytes.’

‘Kantor is here?’ Ladon wheezed.

‘Did Oi not mention tha’?’

‘You did not!’

The Arvus began its landing cycle as it approached the platform, while the others already present shielded themselves from its engine wash. Popov and Prometheus, who made a beeline for the arch and began inspecting its construction on one side while his servo-skull examined the upper reaches, piled out from the rear. Gaius followed them in a timely manner, leaving the engines of the shuttle on idle.

‘Chey, could you please attend to the wounded?’ Gaius ordered, indicating Ladon. He then turned to Syra and Fifty Thrones. ‘It has been… a while,’ he admitted. ‘In fact, all records seemed to indicate that you were both dead.’

‘Perhaps such rumours have been greatly exaggerated,’ Syra replied, a little wary. When Popov approached her, she lightened up a little.

‘Who are these individuals?’ Popov asked.

‘Victims of the corrupt Ordo Necros,’ Ladon answered, pushing Chey aside and trying to rise. Oderic was forced to assist him with standing. ‘As head Chirurgeon aboard the _Pride of Gladtonius_ , I will be taking them into my custody.’

‘I’m afraid Inquisitor Helix will have to have that run by him first.’

Ladon had been afraid of that. Half the people in this realm were probably listed as ‘Kill on Sight’ by Kantor. ‘And if I refuse?’

Gaius paused, sharing a guilty look with Syra and Thrones. ‘The Inquisitor... does not like leaving loose ends.’

Krowe’s hand began to slowly move to her bolt pistol, and Zayn began angling himself between Popov and Syra, even though she and Thrones were already ready to spring. Chey raised his hands and started stepping off to the side.

‘We have a sniper with his scope likely trained on your heads,’ Gaius said with a hint of regret. ‘Please do not make this hard for all of us.’

‘It’s your call, Ladon,’ Krowe muttered.

‘Stand down,’ he announced. With a sigh he moved toward Gaius. ‘You’ll be taking us to the Inquisitor then?’

‘Affirmative.’

‘In that case-’

Prometheus blurted a cry of alarm as he threw himself away from the arch. It promptly erupted with screaming Taken energy as the nine-fingered corpse, now an unbound vessel for Malal, clawed its way back to reality. It issued a screech and bounded forward with Its eyes seemingly locked on Ladon with an unmistakable burning light of vengeance. It swung its vicious claws at him and Oderic while they helplessly leaned on each other, but in a near instant, Popov crossed the distance between him and Ladon. He slammed his boarding shield into the floor before Malal, and the claws slashed through the ceramite plate, but could not touch the men behind it Malal screeched in daemonic tongue as it drew back and prepared for a new strike. Zayn, Gaius and Syra surged forward to aid, but already Chey sprung back into action. He took the homebuilt sniper rifle from his back and lined the barrel up with Malal’s head. A scarlet glow from the daemon-engine core of the weapon powered up flickering lightning around the T’au-tech rail system.

‘Suck on this one ye wee bastard,’ Chey growled as he pulled the trigger. With a crack and actinic discharge of light, a hand-tailored round flew forward. It broke the sound barrier as it punched a volleyball-sized hole in Malal’s head and then detonated. Daemonic ichor rained down, coating each person as well as the Arvus Lighter and most of the floor. No one else said a word as the rest of Malal’s form melted into flames, which were promptly drawn back towards the crackling portal before the arch finally collapsed.

As the smoke cleared, Popov raised his finger to the microbead on his helmet. ‘Hey Cordas, I think you owe our medic 200 gelt.’

+++

Inquisitor Kantor Helix was waiting for them in the hangar of his flagship, alongside another Tech-priest. With nary a gesture from him, a squad of Skitarii bearing plasma weapons had surrounded the shuttle, even as Ladon limped off the ramp and looked towards Kantor.

Before either of them could talk, Gaius marched out. ‘We have completed your orders, Inquisitor. Daemonic and Taken threats were dealt with, and the Tyrant Star has fled this sector of Realspace. As you can also see, we have-’

‘Thank you, Gaius,’ Kantor said in a clipped, robotic tone.

‘Ah, yes. We also recovered several prisoners in need of medical checkups and possible post-traumatic-’

‘Take them away yourself.’

Gaius bowed, and ushered out the four replicae. As the Skitarii parted to let the procession through, Kantor held out his hand. ‘You stay here,’ he told Thrones. She gave an involuntary shudder, and quietly stepped back to stand beside Ladon.

The rest of Gaius’ team also made to follow the replicae, but once again, Kantor ordered Chey to remain behind. 

‘Ah fek,’ he muttered. 

‘Tech-priest Ladon, if you could order your other confederates to exit the shuttle?’ Kantor prompted.

Ladon did not need to say anything as Oderic, Zayn, Syra, and then Krowe solemnly exited the passenger compartment.

The Tech-priest besides Kantor moved forward, sweeping her eerie gaze across the row. She pointed to Ladon, Syra and then Chey in turn. ‘That one is a thief. She is a traitor. And he is… an ignoramus.’

‘Thank you for that assessment, Lexi,’ Kantor said curtly.

Ladon cocked his head in surprise. He had never met Lexi in person. She looked far more normal than he expected, just a girl with augmetics from the lower half of her face down, most of which were covered in Martian-red robes.

‘Three of you should be dead,’ Kantor said. ‘Three of you should be peacefully on the other side of the sector. And you,’ he turned to Chey, ‘ _are_ an ignoramus.’

‘Well Oi certainly dinnae come here to be insulted.’

Kantor’s head twisted slightly while keeping his gaze locked on Chey; a Tech-priest version of disbelief. ‘It goes without saying that there is one easy way to rectify all of my little headaches immediately.’ The circle of skitarii took one synchronised step together.

‘But you won’t do it,’ Ladon said. Kantor swivelled to him, and Lexi tilted her head.

‘Tech-priest Ladon. For all the trust I had put into you during your time serving me, I expected more of you. You have stuck your nose in business you shouldn’t have. You have no right to dictate my actions.’

Ladon ignored Oderic and Zayn’s questioning gazes while he stepped forward. ‘You won’t kill us because you’re curious about what we’ve learnt. Why the Tyrant Star reappeared here, and what the Bachmeyerites have to do with it. That’s what Lexi’s told you, isn’t it?’

‘I can pluck any secrets I want from your head once I’ve removed it from your body. And I can do that without killing you, lest you resort to your paracausal trickery. Or I could simply have Lexi devour you.’

‘The Devourer reduced to licking up Kantor’s dinner scraps,’ Ladon mused. Before she could retort, he addressed her directly, ‘I don’t understand why you’re upset. I dealt with your “problems”.’

‘Lexi?’ Kantor asked as he turned to her.

Lexi frowned and addressed Kantor in turn. ‘I found some new prey and sent Ladon to draw them out of their holes. But when the one called Syra began interfering, Ladon took it upon himself to take the food off my plate.’

Kantor’s already mechanical tone somehow grew colder. ‘Lexi. Your games led enemies towards vital information regarding my projects against Bachmeyer.’

‘That wasn’t her fault,’ Ladon interrupted. ‘The Ordo Necros had been using both of you to manipulate the psychic breeding program they desired. In fact with them out of the picture, you should be safe to continue your experiments in peace.’

Kantor made a long buzzing noise, which may have been a sigh. ‘Perhaps I need a full debriefing. Ladon, Lexi, you may come with me. The rest of you will be escorted to the brig.’

There was as much protest as there was choice in the matter, and the three Tech-priests departed from the others.

+++

‘My first question,’ Kantor told Ladon some time later as they sat within his briefing chamber, ‘is simply how you have apparently retained your knowledge of both the Tyrant Star and Bachmeyer.’

‘I’d left behind a cache of data which, admittedly, I had also forgotten about before subjecting myself to your mindwipe before retirement. Believe you me when I tell you I was shocked to rediscover it. But I did not willingly act on it. Your secrets remain safe.’

‘What game have you been playing with Lexi then? Why have you been traipsing around with three former agents of mine that I had slated for death?’

‘I recovered Thrones after the first encounter with the Tyrant Star in the Cazador system. She wished to exact revenge against Bachmeyer, and to some extent you, as she sought the secrets to her past.’

Kantor made an indignated screech of binary. ‘Then you have already contradicted your previous statement! Surely you shared many secrets with Thrones!’

Ladon kept his vox level. ‘She already possessed plenty of information, gained from both your own collaboration and that of Syra. In fact, the only information she could’ve learnt from me about her past, your Project Psi-Warrior facility, she had learnt from Syra already. Lark and Krowe also reported it to her freely.’

Kantor hummed thoughtfully. ‘What have you and Lexi conspired to do?’

Lexi slammed a fist into the table. ‘We have conspired nothing! He merely traded a Yu’vath vessel for information he wanted.’

‘What information was that?’ Kantor asked.

‘Information on… the Man Who Speaks in Hands,’ she replied.

‘Information that was presumed sensitive to Ladon’s former operation with me.’

She shifted uncomfortably and frowned. ‘I was… not aware of Ladon’s operating status.’

‘Regardless,’ Ladon said. ‘Lexi honestly was not much help. She merely pointed in directions where I could perform my own research and receive actual answers. Mostly in the way of asking Thrones the correct questions and going over specific things in data I already had.’ Maybe Ladon could’ve thrown Lexi under the bus, but he sincerely felt he had no need to do such a thing. Especially if, like she’d claimed, he was the one who had caused unwarranted troubles in her own egomaniacal plans. Although he considered this her own fault anyway. He would’ve greatly appreciated her to strike against the Ordo Necros before he’d gotten tangled up in all of it.

‘Tell me about this Ordo Necros, then,’ Kantor said at last, almost as if reading his mind. Seeing as he was a Psyker, Ladon wouldn’t have been surprised. ‘I am of course shocked to find such corruption within the ranks of my peers.

 _Yes, I’m sure you are._ ‘They were xenos intelligences, using Halo Devices to masquerade as Inquisitors since the 37th Millenium. They have spent their lives without a presence in the Warp, which drove them to breed souls they could absorb into their own psyches, hence their seeding of programs such as yours, Bachmeyers, and I expect many others.’

‘They possessed paracausal powers, yes? Similar to many of the entities that you and your ilk discovered over your service with me. And would I be right that it all connects to the Tyrant Star?’

‘I think there are things in this galaxy that are far older than any of us are willing to admit,’ Ladon said after some time mulling it over. ‘I cannot confidently give you a more clear answer.’

Kantor leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. Mechadendrites over his shoulders flicked throughtfully. ‘I am sure you can sympathise with my current situation. I still have several security threats and potential rivals, as well as examples of paracausal agents that I could learn from. I do believe I have made up my mind. Your mortal companions shall have their minds wiped before being converted into members of my Skitarii legions. You, Syra, and Chey shall prove to be interesting test subjects, however.’

‘I must respectfully decline this fate, Inquisitor,’ Ladon replied. ‘Instead: a counter offer. Under the guidance of Inquisitor Anek Krowe, I shall be forming my own warband with my peers you presently hold prisoner. If you wish to discover more about our paracausal powers, then perhaps I can send you some field reports.’

Lexi laughed. ‘Such audacity! Do you seriously think you can-’

Kantor held up a hand to cut her off. After a pause he said to Ladon, ‘This is what I have always liked about you, Tech-priest Ladon. You always knew exactly what you wanted. It reminds me of myself.’

He fell silent, though Ladon knew not to say anything further. Kantor was not a man to be rushed to an opinion. Ladon sat patiently, enjoying also the fact that Lexi seemed to be absolutely fuming.

‘I think I shall accept this. You are perhaps still a powerful ally I can make use of. But I do not do this lightly. Should you prove to be even a slight threat to me, I shall do all in my power to destroy you. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Of course, Inquisitor.’

Kantor stood, and extended a hand across the table. When Ladon clasped it, Kantor made a point of squeezing tightly. ‘Fool me once, Tech-priest…’

Ladon nodded, and then Kantor let go. He pressed a button on a vox panel built into the table, and ordered the prisoners to be released to the hangar bay, and a shuttle be prepared to take Ladon where he wanted to go. When he then enquired Ladon as to where that would be exactly, Ladon merely shrugged and told him the _Pride of Gladtonius_ would be a good start.

+++

Krowe was certainly impressed with Ladon’s negotiation, while Syra, Thrones and Chey were merely glad they’d gotten themselves off Death Row. Oderic and Zayn seemed less impressed by Ladon’s, and by extent their, supposed relationship with Inquisitor Kantor. They waited until their shuttle had arrived in the _Pride_ once more, and the newcomers had been greeted by Azrarach and dispersed to appropriate quarters. Presently they were headed back to their existing chambers with Ladon, who had otherwise refused to join Thrones in the medbay.

‘Ladon, there’s something you haven’t told us about Kantor,’ Oderic said.

‘Correct. I must apologise for that, but it was in fact in accordance to your own wishes. You are just no longer aware of them.’

‘So at what point did you serve with Kantor as an actual Acolyte?’

Ladon let out a rattling sigh through his vox. ‘I wasn’t alone. You two, Azrarach, and I have been through the long haul. We served Kantor back when Octavia was still on this material plane. Zayn, you joined us at a later date. But we have had our memories tampered with by Inquisitor Kantor,’ As they both expressed their outrage, Ladon held up his hand. ‘We volunteered to have your minds wiped of sensitive data and be placed within the crew of the Highlander for our own protection against the forces of Bachmeyer.’

‘So how come you know all this?’ Zayn demanded.

‘I had apparently left myself backups.’

Oderic surprisingly kept his voice quite level. ‘How much have we forgotten?’ 

‘Primarily only mission relevant data and research into the foes we faced. The Inquisitor performed a careful procedure. Evidently, you might also have forgotten Octavia, but that is a mixed bag in itself.’

Oderic made an effort to keep his pace with Ladon. ‘You… vex me sometimes, Ladon. So, what were your reasons not to tell us?’

‘The choices to have your minds wiped were made by you. There was no reason for me to interfere. Besides that, I found that regaining such… esoteric knowledge was a tax upon even my mind. For you, it would perhaps have driven you mad. The risks far outweighed any superfluous reward, especially since even I did not wish to pursue anything within that lost data. Until recent contact with Thrones, that is, when I realised that all these missing puzzle pieces spelled a dire threat to the Imperium afterall.’

‘A tough burden to bear on your own.’

‘Maybe.’

It was Oderic’s turn to sigh as he ran a hand through his hair. ‘Seeing what we’ve been through in the past few days alone, I think I can guess why I’d quit the Inquisition.’

‘Except now Ladon signed us back up for it again,’ Zayn said accusingly.

‘A balance had to be struck. We have our lives and a little bit of authority, and Kantor gets to sleep soundly knowing that we aren’t about to betray his greatest secrets.’

‘I can’t believe Krowe made you an Interrogator.’

‘And you two shall be my Throne Agents,’ Ladon said as if in agreement.

‘I need a drink…’ Zayn muttered, veering off to enter the mess hall.

Ladon and Oderic walked on in silence before they reached Oderic’s door. 

Oderic sighed. ‘Man, I haven’t slept in weeks it seems.’

‘My logs indicate it has in fact only been 37 hours since we last departed the _Pride of Gladtonius_.’

Oderic blinked at Ladon. ‘Can you check those?’

‘Affirmative. It could in fact be a system error due to the amount of trauma I have received. Conversely, our imagining of the time expended could also be a symptom of trauma.’

Oderic nodded slowly, and then cracked into a mighty grin. ‘Give us a two week notice before you launch us off another of your crazy schemes, ok Ladon?’

‘Technically that is now up to Krowe.’

Oderic gave one of his signature booming laughs as he clasped Ladon’s shoulder. Ladon went to return the gesture, but remembered that he only had a stump on his right side.

‘I will deal with this tomorrow,’ he admitted. ‘I too feel like I have not rested in weeks.’ 

‘See fit that you do,’ Oderic smiled. He bowed and entered his room. ‘Goodnight, Ladon!’

When Ladon reached his room at last, he lit candles to aid the startup of the cogitator on his desk and then tore off the stained and tattered rags that were once his robes of a Lucius Rune Priest. He tossed them in a corner and detached his Phase sword, which Syra had insisted he return to her at some point. After that came the twisted, melted and broken carapace armour plates that he would have to spend days repairing, followed by the shredded bodyglove. He sat on his bed and inspected his bare, silver body. Even with the automation provided by his heretical augmentations, he figured he might have to manually repair, and in some cases even replace, many of his components. A new right hand, heavy stubber, and mechadendrite set would be the first steps. Not wishing to feel naked for much longer, he found a spare robe and pulled that on before moving to his desk. With sickening synthesised greetings, Mr Snuffles weaved with lurching movements around his feet before making a nest on the discarded robe.

He’d received several communications already. One from Krowe once again expressing gratitude at his rescue of her and the new warband, one from Syra saying the same thing but with much more emphasis on the fate of Fifty Thrones, and a final communique from Lexi telling him to never speak to her again.

 _You sure do have a way with the females_ , Ladon mused to himself. _Two out of three isn’t bad_.

Kantor had given a brief letter expressing the intent to exchange a hefty amount of information regarding the latest expedition, as well as future stipulations for his new Inquisitorial duties. No surprises there. With a sigh, Ladon closed these channels after giving brief responses when appropriate. He was surprised to see that he still had the contents of Octavia’s dataslate open when he expected to return to a root menu. Strange, he must not have performed the correct rites of closure the last time he had left the cogitator, and its Machine Spirit had presumed this information to still be vital. He prepared to perform these now, but noticed a peculiarity. A recent edit, made by an unknown contributor, had added a new entry under the _Mission History_ section, aptly named _New Entry_. It contained but a single line of text:

‘Thank you, Ladon.’

Ladon stared blankly at the screen for a while, before he realised that despite his respiratory filter implants, he was trying to smile.

\+ END +


End file.
